Dead By Dawn
by Qille
Summary: Sequel to Time's Running Out. On the night of the Summer Solstice, Hiccup falls ill under mysterious circumstances. Toothless has until dawn to save him. And what's with the mysterious group of revenge-seeking dragons after them? Toothless-centric story!
1. Pricked

_A/N: Yay, time for the sequel! Awesomeness! By the way, if you want to know what baby Toothless looks like right after he hatched, look at my profile picture._

**Dead By Dawn**

**Chapter 1**

**Pricked**

Hiccup slashed his way through the dense brush, using the largest knife he could carry without being worn out too quickly. It was a small knife. But it was just fine. This day was the hottest in a _long_ time, and Hiccup needed all the energy he could get.

What's more was the fact that today was the Summer Solstice, the longest, and now _hottest_ day of the year. It was also Toothless's birthday. Toothless had refused to tell Hiccup _exactly_ how old he was, but he did describe the conditions of the day on which he hatched. Toothless had hatched just after sunset, on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea, sky, and crescent moon.

This was the reason that Hiccup was out in the woods, dehydrated, sweating bullets, and constantly pulling spurs out of his legs, torso, and bare arms.

Though it was a lot cooler than his long-sleeve shirt, his green short-sleeve shirt, the arms cut off a little higher than halfway between his shoulder and elbow, offered little to no protection from the spurs that stuck on 4-foot stalks of grass. It was this spur grass that Hiccup was attempting to cut down.

Sighing, realizing that there were too many stalks to cut down, and that it was way too dry to set them on fire, Hiccup stopped slashing, deciding to risk being pricked about a thousand times rather than risk setting the whole island of Berk on fire. He went back to looking at the ground.

He had been searching the old battle-grounds for a few hours now, and he only needed _a few_ more pieces of metal (which seemed to be in short supply these days) to finish the birthday present he was making for Toothless. Speaking of the hyper black dragon, where was he?

Hiccup stopped and looked up. Toothless was nowhere to be found.

"Huh," said Hiccup. "I could have sworn he was right- _GAH!_" Hiccup yelped as a large, scaly, black object tackled him playfully to the ground, licking his face.

"To-Toothless! St-stop it, I'm gonna drown!" said Hiccup between licks and fits of laughter. Toothless smiled at the success of the surprise attack and stepped off of Hiccup's chest.

Hiccup smiled at the rambunctious antics of his pet Night Fury, but when he sat up, he cringed in pain. Toothless had accidentally knocked him into an extremely large and dense thicket of spur grass. There were spurs lodged deep into his right arm and the right side of his back, extending across the back of his neck, thinning out and ending at his left shoulder. There was one lodged so deep into the wrist of his right hand that it was bleeding.

Toothless saw his rider in pain, and immediately felt guilty.

Hiccup saw Toothless's look and said: "No, it's okay buddy. It was an accident. You didn't know those spurs were there."

_No, but I should have seen them,_ thought Toothless.

With a slight sigh, Hiccup ran his left hand over his back, effectively brushing out most of the spurs that didn't get lodged into his back. His riding harness had done a fairly good job at protecting his back. His left arm got off without anything but a single scratch. There were a few spurs in his neck that stung when he pulled them out. Toothless helped by pulling out some of the spurs in Hiccup's back with his teeth.

Hiccup's right arm got the worst of it, mainly caused by the big green spur, about an inch or two long, lodged deep into his wrist. Hiccup couldn't pull that one out because it kinda _deflated_ when he gripped it, almost as if it were filled with liquid. Not to mention it hurt like crap. Instead of pulling it out, he wrapped it up in a spare piece of cloth.

Toothless licked Hiccup's cut-up arm. Not everyone knew it, but dragon saliva helps sterilize small wounds like cuts so they don't get infected. In this heat, infection could occur in anything. Even a small wound.

"It's all okay, Toothless. I'm fine. No harm done... well, except this thing," said Hiccup, looking down at the only remaining spur, now sticking out of the slightly blood-stained gauze. Toothless still looked guilty. Hiccup sighed. "It's _okay! _Just a little prick. It's nothing Camicazi can't pull out."

Camicazi was as good as any Healer (and even better at stitching up wounds), mainly because she had grown up with a Healer as a best friend, and was now good friends with another Healer named Sig. She was also a great warrior. Her size, speed, and talkativeness made her impossible to hit and made it impossible for her opponent to focus. She was clever, funny, an amazing fighter, and best of all, she could quickly switch personalities.

When Hiccup had been poisoned last winter and Toothless had brought Hiccup to her, she had immediately switched over to the serious, loving, gentle side. Heck, she had helped cut out Hiccup's appendix and she still respected him after seeing him in that state. Hiccup was sure one little spur would hardly be anything.

Toothless, however, wasn't that worried about the spur. He was more worried about the fact that Hiccup was focusing on his wrist, and not how dehydrated he was. Toothless saw that Hiccup had stopped sweating.

Since any form of speaking was a way to lose water, dragons have a tendency of not really talking when it's hot, unless they're in a shady place. So instead of telling Hiccup what to do, Toothless figured that he could just fix the problem himself.

Toothless nudged the spur with his nose. He figured that if Hiccup took his mind off the strange spur, that was green while all the rest were brown, then he would focus on how thirsty he was.

Hiccup looked up at Toothless.

"Wanna give it a try?" he asked, sounding tired. Toothless nodded, and Hiccup held out his hand. Toothless gripped the spur with his teeth and jerked his head back quickly, effectively dislodging the spur.

Hiccup's face went pretty pale. Sure, spurs were really small, but they hurt like heck when they were lodged in that deep. Hiccup suspected that that particular spur had hit a nerve, which was why it hurt so much.

The wound was small and hardly bled, but Hiccup still re-wrapped it pretty tightly to prevent it from getting dirty. Once the cloth was wrapped securely, Hiccup slipped his dragon-scale riding gloves over the bandage and on his hands. The insides were slightly cool. They had been Toothless's gift to Hiccup on Hiccup's birthday.

Right after Hiccup had put his gloves on, Toothless nudged the water-filled canteen hanging from Hiccup's belt.

"You thirsty?" asked Hiccup. Toothless shook his head no. Hiccup looked at him questionably for a few seconds before realizing just how thirsty _he_ was. Toothless smiled when he saw Hiccup go for the water.

_Humans are so silly._

Once Hiccup was properly hydrated again, he realized that there was a strange pain on the back of his head. Running his hand through his hair, he realized that there was something tangled in his hair. Once he worked it out, he saw it was a fairly large, palm-sized scrap of metal. Just the right size for what he needed.

Smiling, Hiccup wiped off the bit of blood on it and put it in the little pouch hanging from his belt. He stood up and looked at the bushes of spur grass that he had fallen in. Right near the center of the brown cluster, a single green stalk stood out. The path Hiccup's right arm had taken was clear.

"Hey, Toothless? Do you think you could..." Hiccup trailed off as the stalks combusted. Hiccup looked over at Toothless, but the dragon also looked confused. Quickly, Toothless jumped on and stomped out the flames. The only stalk left burning was the large green one, which had spurs thick enough to penetrate dragon scales. All the other spurs were way too small.

"...light it on fire..." Hiccup finished. "Are you a mind reader?"

Toothless shook his head, no. He risked losing a bit of water by saying: "I didn't do that on purpose..."

The last stalk of spur grass that was still burning deflated on itself with a popping noise. Once it had collapsed to the ground, the still-burning stalk started oozing this weird liquid, which was boiling and foaming due to the heat. Finally, once every single drop was dried, brown, and caked, the stalk stopped burning, as if the mysterious liquid inside was the fuel for the fire.

"That was gross," commented Hiccup, who was looking a little pale.

Suddenly, something in the pile of ashes was ignited by a small fireball from Toothless. The fire, having nothing for fuel, burned out almost immediately.

Hiccup looked back at Toothless. Hiccup could tell that Toothless hadn't done that on purpose. So... what just caused that?

Toothless looked back to Hiccup, shaking his head slightly.

"I know that was an accident, so don't worry about it," said Hiccup reassuringly.

Toothless looked like he was about to say something, but Hiccup cut him off.

"Hey, let's go flying. I kinda wanted to check something out."

"Yes!" said Toothless quickly.

Hiccup smiled, then re-clipped his safety harness, which he had been wearing loosely and unclipped for the entire time they were on the ground. He put his canteen and little bag, filled with random pieces of the same type of metal, back in the burlap sack hanging from Toothless's saddle. He hopped on, clipped himself in, adjusted the foot pedals, and the two were off, disappearing into the wild blue sky.

_A/N: First chapter of the sequel- complete! Tomorrow will be my update day, and I will probably get two, maybe three chapters updated! You know the drill: R&R and nobody gets hurt! Also, I just wanted to start this story with a little misadventure, y'know, start with a bang. It will get better once you find out who the enemies are. =D_


	2. Hiccuping Fury

_A/N: Sorry if there is a delay between chapters. The weather is getting warmer, and my family just got a new computer and keyboard, so it's taking me some time to get used to the new one. By the way, the spurs are like thorns, not the prickly stuff you find in the grass on soccer fields._

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 2**

**Hiccuping Fury**

The only sound was the wind.

Hiccup closed his eyes, loving the feeling of the cool, high altitude wind caressing his face. It felt _unspeakably _refreshing after spending hours in the hot, muggy air of the surface. Hiccup was glad that he didn't have to search for any more metal. He finally had enough to finish Toothless's birthday present.

It seemed to Hiccup that it was actually kinda a good thing that Toothless had knocked him over and into the spur grasses. If that piece of metal hadn't gotten lodged into the back of his skull, then he and Toothless would probably still be on the ground, searching through the dense buggy forest. The only downside was the wound on his head and the injury on the side of his wrist.

Thinking of his wrist, Hiccup noticed that it had started throbbing again, and it felt kinda wet. He opened his eyes again and looked down at his right wrist, where the glove didn't cover. It had started bleeding pretty heavily now, and the entire bandage was soaked red.

_Why is that still bleeding? _Hiccup wondered. The spur had been lodged into the _side_ of his wrist, not near the veins. Either way, it was probably a good idea to change the bandages.

Looking over the side of Toothless (who was purring with the joy of flying), Hiccup saw that they were over the ocean and the 200 foot tall rocky islands, just off the shores of Berk. In the air, this would probably be a good place to re-wrap his wrist.

Quickly unwrapping the bandage, Hiccup inspected the wound. It hurt like crazy when exposed to the high speed winds. The skin around the wound was red, but Hiccup figured that that was just some blood that had left his skin a little stained. The wound itself was bleeding, a thick stream of blood flowing from the wound. The wind was pushing the stream of blood up Hiccup's arm, making it look like there was a large cut running from his hand, nearing his elbow.

With a tight grip, Hiccup pulled a clean, new bandage (courtesy of Camicazi) out of the easily-accessible burlap sack and expertly wrapped it around the wound on his wrist. He used the old, blood-soaked bandage to wipe the blood off his arm.

Toothless turned a little as they started to angle slightly away from the open sea, but then Hiccup felt Toothless's body give a slight twitch before there was a blue fireball exploding a few feet in front of them.

Hiccup just barely reacted with the foot pedals in time, losing his grip on the bloody bandage and letting it fall to the sea.

Toothless swerved to avoid the fireball that he had accidentally launched. Hiccup, only able to hang on with one hand, felt the safety straps holding him to the saddle and the Night Fury.

Toothless quickly leveled out again. He looked freaked out. "What the heck is going on?"

Hiccup smiled. "Toothless, I think I know why you keep randomly shooting little fireballs. But I'm pretty sure you're gonna think it's ironic."

"Well, don't keep it to yourself, what is it?"

"Toothless _you've got the hiccups!_"

There was a short silence before they both burst into laughter. The laughter stopped a few moments later when Toothless was laughing so hard that he couldn't flap his wings, and they both started plummeting towards the sea.

Hiccup wiped a tear from his eye, his sides still sore from laughing. Well, he _hoped_ it was from laughing...

After taking a deep breath to calm himself (and stop the shaking from the terror of the sudden-but-brief free-fall), Hiccup looked down at Toothless.

"I didn't know it was possible for dragons to get the hiccups."

Toothless shrugged. "I didn't really know that either. Never had 'em before."

Hiccup laughed a little more. Then Toothless asked him: "Hey, you said you wanted to check something out?"

"Oh yeah! Do you remember that cave we found last summer?"

"Yeah. Crescent Grotto?"

"That's the one."

"Why would you want to go _there_? I can't even _think_ about that place without thinking about-"

"Yeah, I know..." Hiccup shuddered, remembering the deeply unpleasant and excruciatingly painful experience that occurred right after they left Crescent Grotto. "I just wanted to see something."

"Alright," said Toothless, sighing. "But if you start having flashbacks, I'm getting you out of there, then setting that whole place on fire."

"Fine. But if I have an anxiety attack and pass out, how are you gonna get me out of there if the only way out is to either fly or swim?"

"This gave Toothless pause for thought. "Meh... I'll figure it out."

"Awesome! Let's go!"

Hiccup adjusted the foot pedals to angle them low over the water and close to the drop-offs and cliffs. However, just before Toothless turned down into the dive, Hiccup glanced behind him. From the tops of the trees on top of one of the rock structures, he just glimpsed a tail disappearing into the trees.

That was the first hint that Hiccup got that told him that there was _something_ on the 200 foot rock island. It wouldn't be the last...

_A/N: There was one part in that chapter that I'm really considering making very important later in the story... Hmm... Please read and review! =D _

_P.S. The main enemy is also half-way introduced in the next chapter. _


	3. The Hunters

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 3**

**The Hunters**

The Beast saw the fireball ignite in the air above it. Looking out from the trees in which it lived, it saw the Night Fury.

For a moment, it got excited, but then it remembered that the Night Fury it was watching now was the tamed one, the broken one, the one that had betrayed it's own twin brother... Either way, the Beast remembered that the Rebel Night Fury was now dead.

The Beast glared at the black dragon, flying erratically through the skies. It could also see the Night Fury's human. It's human looked so frail and weak and... _breakable_. It was a rumor among all the Rebel dragons that the Night Fury had killed his brother because his brother had endangered and mortally wounded it's human rider.

_If only, _thought the Beast, _there was some way of getting revenge for the death of the Night Fury Rebel. _The Beast realized that it should set out to finish the job that the Rebel Fury had originally set out to do: kill the human and capture the Night Fury. If only there was a way to track the human as well as Ruthless had...

That was when the Beast smelled the blood...

The Beast saw a small piece of cloth floating gently downwards, towards the ocean. The blood smelled familiar...

As soon as the piece of cloth was close enough, the Beast quickly zoomed out of it's hiding place, snagged the cloth in it's claws, and flew back to the safety of it's tree caves, unaware that the human had seen it's tail.

Most of the cloth was brownish-red, stained with dried and drying blood. Inhaling deeply, the Beast recognized this blood. This was definitely the blood of the Night Fury's human, and they knew his blood well. The Beast had always been to an attempted attack site, and the human's blood could always be scented. It realized that the human must have been wounded.

The Beast realized that, because the human was wounded, it must be getting weaker. That meant the opportunity for attack was almost among them. However, the Beast needed to know where the human was in order to kill him. Even though their breed of dragon had a relatively good nose, there were certain places where it was impossible to smell a certain human. Like inside their village for example. Too many humans, too many scents, too many fighters, and too many witnesses.

The Beast would have to wait until the human was away from the village, or at least on the outer edges of the village. Then, once the human was... taken care of, they would deal with the Night Fury that had caused so many Rebels. Including the Beast's brother.

It was said that the brother of the Beast was the one who was able to injure the human the most. Well, apart from their former Queen, the Green Death (which, ironically, was a male). All those who fought the Night Fury had wound up dead, but the human had always been wounded and weakened during an attack.

Smelling the blood again, the Beast was able to tell that the little human was still very weak. The Beast could also detect a strange smell in the blood. It soon realized that _this_ smell meant the little human would soon become very sick.

The Beast saw this time as the best to assemble the troops. As soon as night falls, the young human would fall ill, and the Night Fury would leave him to search for a cure or a medicine. That was when they would kill the human. Then they would trap the Night Fury and bring him back with them to try and reactivate his primeval instincts.

_This shouldn't be too hard,_ thought the Beast. _How hard can it be to kill the dragon rider if the blood that flows through his veins is already killing him? _The trick would be to get to him and kill him before his blood got to him first.

The Beast snarled. _Long live the Queen..._

_A/N: O.O Just to clear up any confusions, Toothless's brother's name is Ruthless. The Beast's brother was killed by Toothless when it was attacking Hiccup. The Beast is the leader of a group of Green Death worshipers, also known as Rebels, or LORD (League of Rebel Dragons). That evil female dragon that I mentioned in my previous story will come into play a little bit later in this story. The next chapter contains a flashback. This whole story will probably be riddled with flashbacks. =) _


	4. Crescent Grotto

_A/N: Warning: this chapter contains a flashback from an event that traumatized Hiccup and Toothless._

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 4**

**Crescent Grotto**

Crescent Grotto was a smallish cave that Hiccup and Toothless had found last July. It was right above the sea level, and the entrance was shaped like a crescent moon.

Hiccup and Toothless had only been to Crescent Grotto once, but they knew the way by heart. It was hard for Hiccup and Toothless to forget what had happened just an hour or so after leaving the cave. It seemed that the _entire_ day had been engraved into both of their memories.

_They had left early that morning and had been flying around the cliffs, looking for a place that they could hide in case the Cove became an unreliable place. Hiccup had seen the cave as they flew by, and they decided to fly in and investigate._

_The cave was shallow. The walls were spider-webbed with a strange, vine-like plant that snaked up all the walls and covered the ceiling. There weren't any vines on the floor of the cave, and the vines seemed to grow from cracks in the cave walls. The leaves were a strange greenish-brown, and they looked a bit like little dried up plant buds. Hiccup had never seen plants like that before._

_Just as Hiccup had started to investigate, a clap of thunder came from outside. Looking out, Hiccup saw that the sky had turned dark and cloudy, the ocean a deep churning gray. Hiccup knew that this close to the water, the cave could easily flood._

"_Toothless, let's get out of here," said Hiccup, hopping onto Toothless's back. Toothless flew out of the cave and up the side of the cliff. The storm was just a typical out-of-the-blue midday summer storm, but there was a lot of lightning._

_Toothless, for obvious reasons, flew as low as he could through the tree tops. The lightning was more of a danger to Hiccup, who (as Toothless had learned) was _not_ fireproof._

_That was when the worst happened. There was a small clearing where there were no trees to shield the duo, and that was when the lightning hit them._

_The lightning hit Toothless's tail fin, the voltage traveling all the way up to Hiccup's metal leg (this was one of the reasons Hiccup called himself the human lightning rod). The shock had weakened in the time it took to travel from the tail fin to Hiccup's leg, so the shock was _just _under the lethal limit. It all happened in a nanosecond. The thunder that followed drowned out Hiccup's scream of agony._

_Because Toothless was fireproof, and because the metal part of the tail fin took the hit and not his actual tail, Toothless hardly felt anything but pure, raw energy. But he knew it had hit Hiccup._

_Toothless felt Hiccup go completely limp. But even if Hiccup _had_ managed to stay conscious, it wouldn't have mattered. The bolt had melted the metal parts on the tail fin (surprisingly, the flammable cloth didn't even get singed), and they were going to crash._

_Toothless prepared for the landing, but then to his absolute horror, he felt Hiccup's limp, shaking body slip off the side of his neck. Apparently, the lightning had melted the metal rings on the safety harness, and Hiccup had slipped off._

_Before letting Hiccup fall even five feet, Toothless grabbed him with his paw and slung him back over his neck. Then he heard Hiccup gasp as he suddenly snapped awake again. Hiccup sat back up in the saddle, holding on tight, fighting off nausea and unconsciousness, and trying to get his fried nervous system back under control to stop the shaking._

_Hiccup had only fallen for a second, but the quick grab that Toothless had made had thrown him off balance, and now they were tumbling through the air, heading for the trees. Toothless saw a crater-shaped clearing and tried to head for it, but they were too low, falling too fast._

_They both hit the ground equally as hard. Toothless felt something in his right wing twist. Hiccup felt and heard all of his ribs crack. Toothless ended up flat on his back, his sprained right wing just lying there loosely. Hiccup was curled up in the fetal position, coughing up blood from his cracked and broken ribs. He was just lucky that one of his broken ribs hadn't punctured one of his lungs... yet._

Thinking back on it, Hiccup found it surprising that being struck by lightning, falling a few hundred feet, and breaking all of his ribs was _not_ the worst thing that had happened to him that day.

_With a lot of difficulties, Hiccup, who almost passed out whenever he lifted his arms, managed to get Toothless's wing in the correct position so that it would heal correctly (it's a rarely known fact, but if a dragon sprains something, it takes them less than 30 minutes to heal the injury. A broken bone takes less than an hour)._

_They had started to make their was back to the village, but that was when they were attacked._

_A large dragon with a big head, small wings, a vine-greenish hue (which was why Hiccup had nicknamed it a Vine Dragon), short back legs, no front legs, a long, serrated tail, and spikes running down it's entire back lunged at them from out of nowhere, knocking Hiccup and Toothless apart._

_Hiccup had hit a tree hard, the pain knocking him out for a minute. In that short time, Toothless had lunged at the dragon, but the dragon had thrown Toothless into the wall of vines that it had been hiding behind, getting Toothless way too tangled to get out without burning the soaking wet (it was still raining) vines._

_Hiccup had suddenly and painfully snapped back into consciousness, just in time to hear Toothless shout for him to run._

_Jumping up had been a mistake; the pain had blinded him almost immediately. He stumbled forward just in time. The dragon had lunged at him, but because he stumbled and moved, the dragon had gotten the horn on the end of its snout lodged into the tree._

_With the head-start, Hiccup took off, fighting _himself_ the whole way. The dragon, not yet free, had used it's spiked tail to launch spikes at Hiccup. Most missed. One of them might have skimmed his arm._

_Every time Hiccup stumbled, tripped, or _inhaled_, he wound up coughing up blood and swearing in pain. Then he noticed where exactly he was, and that there was a path that he knew. It was right next to the crater clearing, and it would take Hiccup all the way back around to Toothless, who was still attempting to burn the vines, and lead them back to the village where they would be safe._

_Well, it was a good theory anyways._

_The clearing came into view, but the second Hiccup was in the clearing, the dragon (which had gotten free and had been silently pursuing him) violently wrapped it's tail around Hiccup's chest like a bull whip and slammed him into the ground._

_The dragon gave Hiccup a chance to cough up all the blood (and there was a lot) before tightening its grip again. This time, it flung Hiccup into the clearing, it's tail leaving red marks all over his chest and back._

_Hiccup tumbled down the steep sides, his busted ribs screaming all the way down._

_Once the tumble was over, Hiccup curled up and vomited up all of the blood that was pooling in his stomach and lungs. If the dragon didn't get to him first, then he would probably drown in his own blood, or at the very least bleed to death._

_There was a loud thump as the dragon hopped down into the crater, right next to Hiccup. Hiccup tried to look like he was dead by flopping over onto his stomach and holding his breath. His ribs screamed in protest and agony, but he forced himself to endure the pain._

_However, the dragon was not convinced. It wanted to make sure that Hiccup was dead. It did make sure._

_Using it's serrated, whip-like tail, the dragon whipped Hiccup across the back at least 15 times before there was a high-pitched shrieking sound filling the rainy air._

_The dragon stopped, giving Hiccup- who had lost consciousness after the first few lashes, and regained it when he heard Toothless- the opportunity to roll out of the way as Toothless turned the offending dragon into a stain on the grass._

_Hiccup was deep in shock when he had rolled over, so he didn't feel anything. But then, the shock wore off right after he had rolled over. He was on his shredded back, so he was paralyzed with pain._

_Toothless slowly slunk over to him, warbling in concern. There were pools of blood forming around Hiccup, who was pale as death, gasping instead of breathing. The rain had lightened a bit, but it was still drizzling._

_Hiccup was going into shock again, but he managed to have Toothless help him sit up. Toothless had actually vomited himself when he saw Hiccup's maimed back, the flesh torn away and blood flowing freely from every gash. That dragon had done more damage with one lash than a regular whip could have after 30 lashes!_

_Toothless, determined to get Hiccup back to the village, had gently laid Hiccup across his neck, so he wouldn't stretch any of the wounds or bring Hiccup out of his shock-induced unconsciousness. After slowly and carefully climbing out of the crater, Toothless had made his way back to the village._

_He was lucky that the village wasn't that far away, and he was grateful for the rain, mainly because whenever Hiccup unconsciously coughed up blood, it just mixed with the rain, and Toothless couldn't tell whether it was rain or blood running down his neck. Hopefully rain._

_They were about five minutes away from the village when Hiccup had woken up for a few seconds. In those few seconds, he had said something that haunted Toothless still to this day:_

"_Toothless, hurry! I can't make it!"_

_Toothless sprinted back to the village at subsonic speeds. Luckily, Camicazi was there to take care of Hiccup._

_The only trouble was a few days later when Hiccup woke up and his wounds started bleeding again. Camicazi had to change the bandages, but that meant Hiccup had to roll over on his stomach. Toothless had to keep him from hyperventilating so that he wouldn't pass out again. He figured it must have been painful to lay on a shattered ribcage._

_He almost managed to calm his rider. Hiccup's breathing had slowed down considerably, almost back to normal. But that was when whatever numbness that had been left over from the shock had worn off completely, and Hiccup had lost his vision because the pain was so bad. The last thing he had seen was Toothless._

_Needless to say, it was one of the scariest nights in Toothless's life, now knowing if Hiccup would even make it to morning._

_Fortunately, luck was on their side, and Hiccup had woken up the next morning, but with a fever so high that he was bedridden for a week._

Hiccup and Toothless couldn't help but shudder at the memory as they sped along the cliff-side, skimming the water. Toothless was checking the skies for any sign of an oncoming thunderstorm. However, there was hardly a cloud in sight. Tonight would be really clear. Hiccup was absentmindedly running his finger along one of the scars that had extended to his left shoulder and partway up his neck.

The reason that Hiccup had wanted to come back to Crescent Grotto was because they hadn't been there in almost a year, and Hiccup never really had a chance to get a good look at those weird bulbs on the vines.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness overcame Hiccup and he gripped the saddle as tight as he could to avoid slipping off. Toothless sensed something wrong with Hiccup and said: "Hiccup? Everything okay up there?"

Hiccup coughed, then nodded shakily before remembering that Toothless couldn't see him.

"I'm fine. I think I was out in the heat too long though. I'm feeling a little dizzy."

Toothless used his awesome dragon abilities to home in on Hiccup's vitals- something he had learned to do a few weeks after they first met. With this ability, he could sense and feel what Hiccup was feeling (physically). It was how he had known Hiccup was alive after the Green Death was killed.

Hiccup's heart rate was a bit higher than normal, even though it was always higher while flying than on the ground. He had a bit of a fever; his temperature a little above 100, but Toothless just figured that it had been caused by prolonged exposure to the extremely high temperatures. Strange enough, his sides and ribs were still a bit sore, even though that should have worn off. The last thing he noticed was maybe the most alarming: the wound on Hiccup's wrist hadn't stopped bleeding yet.

"Hiccup, I think maybe we should-" Toothless was cut off by Hiccup.

"There it is!" Hiccup exclaimed, pointing at the Grotto, which Toothless almost missed.

Gracefully backpedaling with his wings, Toothless came to a near stop in midair, hovering just outside the entrance to the cave. With a slight adjustment to the foot pedal and some precise aiming by Toothless, the duo maneuvered their way through the 6-foot opening (which was the widest part of the entrance) and into Crescent Grotto.

Toothless folded in his wings and they landed smoothly. Hiccup hopped off, a little shaky, and looked around. The first thing he noticed was how green and alive the bulb-like leaves were. They were larger, more green, and the tips were white.

"Wow..." muttered Hiccup. "Toothless, look at this!" He pointed excitedly at a very large bulb. Toothless, however, wasn't looking at the bulb.

"Hiccup, your hand! Look at your hand!"

Hiccup looked down at his bandaged hand and muttered a 4-lettered curse word. The entire bandage was completely soaked in his own blood. Well, that would account for the dizziness.

Hiccup slowly unwrapped his bloody hand, but the second the wound was uncovered, some of his blood splashed onto the floor of the Grotto. This surprised Hiccup, and he dropped the bloody bandage.

Feeling he was unstable, and too dizzy to bend over without falling, Hiccup made a mental not to pick up the bandage later. He quickly stumbled over to the burlap sack hanging from Toothless's saddle and pulled out another bandage. He wrapped his hand again, hoping that the wound would clot soon.

Feeling a bit better and less dizzy, Hiccup turned to pick up the bandage, but something caught his eye. One of the bulbs shivered. And there had been no breeze.

Maybe it had been his imagination, or maybe he was slightly delirious from the heat, but Hiccup forgot about the bandage and slowly walked over to investigate.

Two of the larger bulbs near the bottom of the same vine were definitely... different. Hiccup noticed that this vine's color was darker at the bottom, but only up to the two bottom-most bulbs.

Cautiously, Hiccup reached out and touched the bottom bulb gently. Unknown to both Hiccup and Toothless, the bulb once again shivered slightly.

As gently as he could, Hiccup grasped the fragile bulb and gently plucked it form the vine. It came off extremely easily.

He held it in the palm of his good hand. Hiccup wondered why it grew in _this_ cave and nowhere else. _There wasn't any sunlight in this cave... Wait a second! Sunlight... Maybe the bulbs didn't do so hot in sunlight..._

Hiccup looked at the tiny beam of sunlight that had been able to stream in. were the light hit the cave wall, there were no vines or bulbs.

"Toothless," said Hiccup, an idea forming in his mind, "can you spread your wings and block all the light coming in?"

Toothless nodded and unfurled his wings. The light was instantly blocked, plunging the cave into darkness. But not for long.

There was a dim bluish light, similar to moonlight, coming from the walls. Looking closer at the bulb in his hand, Hiccup saw that the blue light was coming from the white tip of the bulb itself.

Hiccup was speechless, and his mind went dead for a moment.

"Toothless," muttered Hiccup, "you can put your wings down now..."

Toothless pulled his wings back to his sides and moved over to the shadowy spot where Hiccup was standing. Hiccup, without taking his eyes off the bulb, reached into the burlap sack and pulled out a small, hard, wooden box. He gently placed the bulb in the box.

Looking back at the wall, Hiccup reached for the second bulb on the strange colored part of the vine. After all, it was better to have spares.

Come to think of it, Hiccup also figured a third wouldn't hurt. He plucked a third bulb off a completely different vine. With all three bulbs side-by-side, Hiccup couldn't help but notice how dark the leaves of the two bulbs were compared to the other one.

Hiccup closed the box and made sure it wouldn't open, using a dragon tooth lock that he had devised. He slipped the box back into the burlap sack.

"Okay Toothless, let's start heading home. I've got something I need to work on."

"What about your hand?" asked Toothless, worried about his rider's blood loss and how it would affect the control of his own artificial tail fin.

"It's fine... Oh yeah," muttered Hiccup, remembering the bandage on the ground. He turned to pick it up, but out of nowhere, he was completely overcome by a wave of dizziness. It was so bad that the entire cave spun wildly to the side. Hiccup threw out his hands to stop his fall, but that just resulted in him landing awkwardly right on his bad hand. Hiccup felt his head make contact with the hard cave floor. Then everything around him faded into blackness...

**xxx**

Everything was dark. Hiccup moaned, wondering why his head and hand were hurting.

He slowly opened his eyes, only to find two large mint-green dragon eyes staring back down at him.

"Wha' 'appened?" slurred Hiccup.

"Y-you passed out," said Toothless, the worry clear in his voice. "And I think your fever went up a bit. Maybe you're getting an infection in your hand..."

"You s...sounded like you wanted to say more," muttered Hiccup, pushing himself up on his elbows. Toothless pushed his nose under Hiccup's back and helped support him.

"Well, you were moaning and shaking... and I was wondering if you were... having... flashbacks..."

"Well," said Hiccup, giving Toothless a scratch on the nose to calm him down, "I'm sorry I scared ya' buddy. I think I just... tripped and... hit my head when I fell. Maybe I was moaning because I _do_ have a bit of a fever from being out in the heat too long..."

"I don't believe that," deadpanned Toothless, totally catching Hiccup's lie.

"Okay, maybe I _might_ be getting an infection, and I lost a bit too much blood because the cut is so close to the vein on my wrist. The moaning and shaking was the fever from the heat. Happy?"

"It'll work," said Toothless. "Now c'mon, let's get you out of here. I'm taking you back to the village."

"Fine," said Hiccup, hopping onto the saddle and hooking on the safety straps, both Hiccup and Toothless failing to notice that the small pool of blood from Hiccup's wrist was gone. Toothless climbed out of the cave and took off into the sky.

There were still no clouds, but a storm was still coming...

_A/N: Thoughts? Also: poor Hiccup. Anybody want to guess what what might be wrong with him (like heat stroke or infection or all that good stuff)? R&R please! =D_


	5. Force 20

_A/N: Sorry for not updating earlier. I just got the 8th HTTYD book in the mail and I just had to finish it in one night... Hehe... sorry. One more thing: in the 8th book, there is also something called the Beast, but that Beast and my Beast are nothing alike. Thank you. =D_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 5**

**Force 20**

The Beast looked at the fighters that had been gathered. They would attack in an F-20, or a Force of Rebel dragons 20 strong. The fighters included 4 Rebel Vine Dragons, 3 Black-Back Shredders, 2 Dagger Claws, a Whispering Death, a single Boneknapper, 2 Scrills, 3 Timberjacks, 1 Changewing, a Scauldron (who was really a neutral dragon and didn't actually fight, but it put out the fires afterward. It was only there for the summer), and one of the most important: a Shadow. The Shadow would be the most crucial part if the mission was to succeed.

The Beast itself was the 20th fighter.

The Beast, looking over the 17 Rebel LORD dragons (and the little Scauldron in the back), began thinking of the battle ahead. Maybe it _was_ a little unfair, just one Night Fury against a multitude of various and deadly dragons. But they didn't want to kill the Night Fury, just incapacitate it until they could reactivate it's killer instincts. The human, though, would surely die. That was the Shadow's job.

_Speaking of which, where is that Shadow? _

"Ombra," the Beast called out. "Where are you." It was more of a demand than a question.

One of the shadows on the walls of the cave in which they were gathered darkened. It formed the shape of a dragon. Then, out of the _wall itself_ stepped a dragon, as dark as a shadow. A Shadow Dragon.

"You bellowed?" hissed the feminine voice of the dragon, it's red eyes gleaming.

"Just wanted to make sure you were present," growled the Beast, looking at it's Second in Command.

Ombra glanced at her claws in fake modesty. "I always am. I go where the shadows go."

_Whatever,_ thought the Beast, remembering the time when they once were best friends. But the Beast had cut all friendly ties after it's brother had been killed by the Night Fury.

Sighing, the Beast looked at the fighters, all standing and chattering quietly. It's eyes fell on the 2 other Dagger Claws, both of them female. Dagger Claws would be a funny sight if they weren't so frightening. They had small bodies and long necks, but their claws made them look bigger and more ferocious. Their claws were a solid 5 feet long, curved, and sharper than a knife. The two Dagger Claws were also the Beast's little sisters. Both were looking slightly nervous. This was their first Hunt.

Normally, only a single Rebel dragon would be chosen by the leader (it used to be Ruthless) to kill the human and kidnap the Night Fury. Being twins with the Night Fury, Ruthless had usually known who would be best fit to do the job. However, none of the dragons that Ruthless sent out on a Hunt came back alive.

When the Black-Back Shredder, Razor, had been brutally murdered by Toothless was when Ruthless started to go off the deep end. Razor had been Ruthless's best friend and Second in Command. In desperation, Ruthless had sent the Beast's brother, Blyde, to inhabit the Cove and wait for Toothless and his rider.

The Beast had gone with Ruthless to see what had become of it's older brother. They had found Blyde dead, his neck snapped, his head right near a pool of the human's blood. It was only then that Ruthless decided to follow the old saying: "If you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself."

Ruthless had appointed the Beast as the Second in Command after Razor had died. The Beast had taken command when Ruthless had never come back. And now, it was preparing a Hunt with 20 times as many fighters as the originals. There was no way they could fail this time.

Sighing, the Beast looked at the fighters again. It knew that they were waiting for the plan of action, but there was no _solid_ plan yet. There had been no word from the scouts of the location of the human or Night Fury yet.

The Beast sensed that the fighters were beginning to run out of patience. Finally, it stood and faced the fighters, ready to announce that the mission may have to be aborted or that they may just have to wing it (no pun intended, but the Monstrous Nightmare would have loved that one), when the faint smell of blood carried on the wind caught the Beast's attention.

Only moments later, one of the scouts, a Rebel Vampire Dragon, fluttered under the tree cover and into the waiting cave. It fluttered to the Beast, gasping and clearly out of breath, its dark brown fur stained darker with sweat. Some of it's fur was clinging to it's wings. But... it looked excited.

"W...w...we h...have f...f...found the N...Night F...Fury's lo...location... It... it seems that the d...dragon and h...human have been to Crescent Grotto. W...we believe the dragon will return at a later time. They are probably at the v...village now."

"Why do you believe the Night Fury will return?" hissed the Beast in a menacing voice, though it was extremely excited on the inside that the mission had a lead now.

"The human left this..." The Vampire Dragon lifted his claw and showed the piece of bloodstained bandage that it had found; the very same piece of bandage that Hiccup had accidentally left at the Grotto.

"What do you suggest we do, Commander?" the Vampire Dragon asked the Beast.

"We set up an ambush. Crescent Grotto is right near those low rocky outcrops, right? We can hide there until the Night Fury returns. Remember troops: the goal is to _capture_ the Night Fury; do _not_ hurt him. The human, however, must be killed. It's the only way..." the Beast let the sentence hang, looking at the Shadow. It whispered to her: "You are the one to do it." The Shadow nodded.

After waiting a moment for the troops to arrange themselves, the Beast turned to the scout.

"Find the other scouts and tell them to lie low and remain waiting for other orders."

The tiny Vampire Dragon gave a sharp nod and flew off. The Beast turned to the troops.

"Remember team: catch the dragon. The Shadow will take care of the human. The Night Fury is protective, so if it is with the human, be careful. The League Of Rebel Dragons does not have room for accidents. Us Rebels have been weakened enough; any more mistakes will _destroy_ us. If LORD is destroyed, all the Rebel words will have been for _nothing_.

"And remember: _Long live the Queen..._"

With that, the Beast took to the skies, followed closely behind by it's troops.

There's a storm coming all right...

_A/N: This chapter may have been short, but it took me a while to write. I tried not to introduce too many new characters and overwhelm the reader. Most of those dragons won't be given names. I came up with Vine Dragons, Black-Back Shredders, Dagger Claws, and Shadow Dragons. I have been told that the name Ombra has been used before in a TV or book series, but I have never read/seen them, so I'll just say that I'm not the first to use the name Ombra. I chose it through a suggestion, and because the Spanish word for 'shadow' is 'sombra.' R&R please! =D _


	6. Visiting Camicazi

_A/N: Enter Camicazi. Warning: awkward fluff moments between Hiccup and Camicazi. Funny fluff between Toothless and Stormfly (well, just for Toothless). I'm sorry, but this is a slow chapter.  
_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 6**

**Visiting Camicazi**

The flight back to the village was uneventful. Hiccup sat comfortably on the saddle, thinking about why he had just gotten dizzy so randomly. Maybe it was from heat exhaustion. That was his best guess. Then again, maybe it was the blood loss just getting to his head. Or maybe the wound on his wrist or the back of his head were getting infected.

Any of those reasons were enough for Toothless to be convinced that Hiccup needed to see a Healer.

Hiccup was convinced that Toothless was just overprotective. Then again, dragons could sense danger much quicker than humans. And Toothless had every reason to be protective.

Toothless and Hiccup flew over some of the first buildings on the outer borders or the village. There weren't that many people there, because most of the villagers were out on their way to trade with another tribe. Along with Hiccup's father.

Hiccup was kinda grateful that his father wasn't here. Hiccup hated it when he got sick or hurt in front of his father. And even after it all blew over, Stoick wouldn't let Hiccup leave the house for a month. Even after he recovered. Hiccup agreed with Toothless that the reason for Stoick's over-protectiveness was because he didn't want to almost lose Hiccup again. There had been too many... eh... close calls.

Toothless gently angled downwards and began their slow descent into the safety of the village. After a minute, they skimmed the ground and Toothless leveled out. He gracefully backpedaled with his wings and slowed the flight to a stop.

Hiccup unhooked the riding harness and his prosthetic and jumped down off of Toothless's back. They were right in front of Camicazi's house.

Hiccup started to walk up to the closed front door, but Toothless stopped him by clearing his throat. Hiccup looked over to Toothless.

"What is it?"

Toothless gestured over his shoulder towards a large tree near the front door. Hiccup looked over at the tree, then started laughing so hard that his sides started hurting again and he almost fell over.

Hanging upside-down from the tree, sleeping, was none other than ze Great Camicazi and her beautiful Mood Dragon Stormfly.

Hiccup and Toothless walked over to the tree. Camicazi must have still been tired from the sword fighting competition that had taken place the previous night. She had won in her age group (she beat the boys too).

Hiccup had wanted so badly to participate in the competition, because his skill with a sword made up for his prosthetic ten times over. However, his father had actually found out about the whole poisoning and Night Fury attack from the previous winter. He had found out about two weeks after the attack. By that time, Hiccup had been up and around a bit. Stoick had been told that Hiccup had gotten sick (which he did), which was the excuse for the much needed bed rest and Hiccup's pain and lethargy.

Hiccup remembered his father's face when he had come home early to find Camicazi changing Hiccup's bandages. His bandages had covered his whole torso, from the surgery scar to his shoulder. She had only been halfway done, and the wound on his shoulder hadn't been covered yet.

Stoick had simply stood there, a stoic expression (_again_, no pun intended) on his face. He also probably noticed the bandage on Hiccup's leg from where the snake had actually bitten him.

Hiccup and Camicazi were both frozen. Camicazi had one hand holding the bandage, and the other hand on Hiccup's bare arm to keep him from flinching, but now the contact felt extremely _awkward_ with Stoick standing there.

After a few awkward and tense minutes (longest minutes ever), Stoick simply said: "You can... go ahead and finish up, Camicazi. Hiccup... tonight I'd like to... have a... talk... with you..." Although he struggled for semi-kind words, there was no anger in his voice (his face was unreadable under his beast of a beard). However, his voice seemed to be filled with... sadness. With that, he left.

Camicazi had noticed that Hiccup had gotten much paler. She quickly finished bandaging Hiccup's wounds. Once she was done, Hiccup had told her that she should get out of there. Hiccup wanted Camicazi nowhere _near_ the house when Stoick went nuclear, though Hiccup was sure that Stoick would yell so loud that he would wake half the village.

However, that night, Stoick didn't yell at all. He just seemed sad, and maybe even slightly... _curious_!

Hiccup had told Stoick how he had gone into the forest and had been attacked by a snake, which accounted for the bandaged leg. He had also explained all that could be explained about the poison and how it killed it's victim. Reluctantly, he had told him about the cure, the dragon bite, and the type of dragon that caused it. Hiccup conveniently _forgot_ to mention that the Night Fury was Toothless's twin brother. He had shown Stoick the almost-closed wound on his forehead, which was normally hidden by his hair. Stoick still looked sad, almost... betrayed. Hiccup felt he had every right to feel betrayed and untrusted. But Hiccup had only kept it a secret because he didn't want anyone to worry...

And now, 5 months later, after Hiccup had been completely rehabilitated and had gotten full use of his shoulder back, Stoick was still extremely overprotective. In fact, before he left this morning, Stoick had made Hiccup promise not to get mauled or bitten by anything poisonous. He promised.

Now, Hiccup limped over to Camicazi's upside-down sleeping form. Though her skinny arms didn't touch the ground, her long blonde hair did. Hiccup wondered if she ever got hot under that tangled haystack.

Hiccup slowly sat down a few feet away, in front of Camicazi. He didn't want to startle her and make her fall, but he needed her help.

He didn't really have to worry about her falling. Camicazi's eyes snapped open and she smiled.

"What's up," she asked, still hanging upside-down.

"You," said Hiccup, thinking of the Monstrous Nightmare that had tried to pull that one on Goliath the Boneknapper. "Um... I kinda need you... to... Uh, could you _please_ come down?" Hiccup was feeling kinda awkward about talking to Camicazi while she was just hanging.

"Sure," she said. With that, she braced her hands and dropped from the tree. She landed in a perfect handstand. Hiccup figured she spent a lot of time upside-down, because her face wasn't even red.

She turned the handstand into a cartwheel, doing about seven cartwheels in a circle around Hiccup.

"You're always kinda hyper after a nap, aren't you?" wondered Hiccup out loud.

Camicazi giggled, which was something she _never_ did unless she was extremely hyper, giddy, or delirious with a fever or something. "Kinda."

She stopped cartwheeling and sat down cross-legged in front of Hiccup. "So, what's the problem Red?"

"Red?"

"It was Stormfly's idea. She wanted to see how you reacted," said Camicazi, gesturing with her head to Stormfly. Stormfly's beautiful golden Mood Scales glistened in the intense sunlight that managed to penetrate the cracks in the leaves from the foliage above. She was still sleeping, snoring lightly, mouth gaping open. Stormfly might be a beautiful dragon, but she was quite a looker when she slept.

Hiccup and Camicazi stifled a laugh at the sleeping eh... _beauty_, but Toothless couldn't stop staring at her, his own jaw slightly loose.

"She's pretty when she sleeps," muttered Toothless quietly, talking to himself and probably not even realizing he was saying his thoughts out loud. Hiccup knew that Toothless had a crush on Stormfly, but he had never heard Toothless say his thoughts about her out loud. His crush must have been crushing him (_once again_, NO PUN INTENDED). Of course, Toothless _did_ talk in his sleep, and the half that wasn't random muttering was about _"pretty gold mood scales"_ and what not.

"Go take my spot, Toothless," said Camicazi, gesturing to the spot on the branch where she had been hanging. Camicazi didn't speak Dragonese, but she saw the puppy eyes that Toothless was making and she guessed correctly.

Toothless gratefully flapped up to the branch and wrapped his long black tail around the branch, edging a little closer to Stormfly. He let his wings hang limp by his side, because it was too hot to wrap up.

Toothless whispered something to Stormfly so quietly that the only reason Hiccup heard it was because he was listening for it. "You look pretty." He sounded very small and childish. But it was pretty cute.

"They're so cute together," Hiccup whispered to Camicazi.

Camicazi sighed. "I wish I could understand Dragonese. I know Stormfly gets annoyed with translating for me sometimes." Stormfly was, in fact, the only dragon that Hiccup knew of that could speak both Dragonese _and_ Norse.

Suddenly, Hiccup remembered something. "Camicazi! Wait here!"

With that, he scrambled to his feet, almost face-planted, and then sprinted off to his house and disappeared inside. Camicazi cocked her head in curiosity.

About 10 seconds later, Hiccup ran back out with something in his hand. Camicazi stood up. Hiccup stood in front of her and held it out. It was a necklace.

"I was gonna wait until next month and give it to you for your birthday, but..." Hiccup let the sentence hang.

Camicazi gasped and gently took the necklace in her hands. There was an amulet hanging from the thin chain. It looked like a very small black dragon scale that was framed in gold. Then she realized: that's exactly what it was!

"This is one of Toothless's scales. Plus, there's a few little surprises," said Hiccup. He gently took the necklace and put it over Camicazi's head. She adjusted it around her neck and pulled her hair out of the chain.

Camicazi looked at the amulet, then almost cried out in surprise. The golden framing changed colors! It turned to deep scarlet.

"I uh... used one of Stormfly's scales too," said Hiccup, blushing.

Toothless looked up at Camicazi's necklace. "You wear it well," he said.

"Thanks," said Camicazi, looking down. Suddenly, her head snapped back up and she looked at Toothless. "Say that again!"

"Say what?"

Camicazi did a cartwheel, grabbed Hiccup, kissed him on the lips, and then hugged him for all he was worth. "OH THANK YOU SO MUCH! Oh my Gods, how did you know that a Night Fury scale would let me understand Dragonese?"

"I... did some... experiments... Ribs... breaking... can't... breathe...!" gasped Hiccup.

"Oh," said Camicazi, letting him go. "Sorry..."

After a few deep breaths, Hiccup gasped, "It's okay..." He took another deep breath and stood up straight, though he was sure Camicazi's death-hug had left bruises. He held out his arms to show that he was fine. "See?"

"Hiccup," gasped Camicazi, grabbing Hiccup's right arm. "What happened to your hand? Is this what you wanted me to look at?"

The bandage on Hiccup's wrist was part-way soaked through with blood. "Why hasn't that stopped bleeding yet?" Hiccup wondered out loud.

Camicazi grabbed Hiccup's good arm and pulled him up towards her house. She pulled him through the door and directly in the room right next to the door, which she called the Sick Room. It was in this room 5 months ago that Hiccup had been taken care of when he had been poisoned by the White Death, and where Toothless had injected Night Fury poison into Hiccup, and where Camicazi and Sig had cut out Hiccup's appendix. This room had a lot of memories. Strangely, all those memories had happened on the same day. Hiccup and Toothless still weren't able to understand why Toothless had been able to use his dormant poison gland that day. He hadn't been able to activate it since, but now he knew it was there.

Camicazi pulled a chair up to a table and sat Hiccup down in it. Then she pulled up a chair for herself and sat down across from Hiccup. Hiccup put his bandaged wrist on the table and Camicazi gently unwrapped the bandages.

As soon as she pulled away the last layer of cloth, she froze, eyes wide, face pale.

"Hiccup, how did _this_ happen?" she whispered. The wound had been torn when Hiccup had fallen on it back in the Grotto, and it was no longer just a puncture wound. It was now a solid inch and a half long gash. The skin around the wound was red and swollen, most likely getting infected. Camicazi shook her head.

"I'll be right back," she said. She then stood up and ran out of the room, only to come back seconds later with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her hands clean. She was carrying a few small jars filled with... uh... _stuff_.

Camicazi sat back down and put the jars on the table. She took a clean piece of cloth and poured a little liquid from on of the bottles on it. Then she handed Hiccup a towel.

"Um... what's this for?" he asked.

"Put it in your mouth and bite on it so you don't scream. This might sting a little," said Camicazi, holding Hiccup's hand down to the table. Hiccup clamped down on the towel and Camicazi gently dabbed the wound with the cloth.

It stung. Like... _a lot_. At the moment, Hiccup was glad that Camicazi had given him something to muffle his words, because he sure didn't want _anyone_ to hear what he was saying right then.

"Alright, hold still ya' big wuss," said Camicazi, trying not to laugh at Hiccup's face. "This is just to make sure it doesn't get infected. Wouldn't want ya' to lose a hand too, now would we?" Hiccup growled, sounding very much like Toothless.

After a minute, Camicazi grabbed another clean cloth and poured a different substance on it. The second she put it on the wound, Hiccup's face relaxed and the towel fell out of his mouth. "That's cool," said Hiccup. "What is that?"

"Do you think I know _any_ of these medicine names? This just numbs your hand," said Camicazi. "Go ahead; try and move it!"

Hiccup tried to flex his hand, but the only thing he could do was make his finger twitch a little bit.

"So... why did you need to numb it..." Hiccup trailed off as he looked up at Camicazi. She had taken a blackened bone needle out of one of the jars and was threading it. "Oh... Stitches."

"Do you want it to stop bleeding or not?"

Hiccup gulped, then made sure his hand was flat on the table and looked away. This would be the first time he got stitches while he was conscious, and he had to admit: he was a little freaked out.

"_Boys_," muttered Camicazi under her breath, rolling her eyes. With that, she dipped the thread in some sterilizing fluid and started on the wound. _This shouldn't take that many stitches._

Hiccup felt a strange tugging sensation on the skin around the wound. It didn't hurt, and Hiccup risked a look. He was shocked to see Camicazi halfway done with the stitches. That stuff really did a good job at numbing you; Hiccup hadn't felt a single thing!

Instead of watching Camicazi stitch him up, which would have been kinda creepy, he looked at Camicazi. There was no one better than Camicazi at stitching. She had been the one to sew up Hiccup after his appendectomy. Now, her brow was furrowed with concentration. Hiccup never would have guessed at how controlled and steady her hand was. If anyone who saw her in a sword fight- going Berserk on some thug three times her size- saw her now- calm and collected- then they would have thought they were hallucinating. Camicazi really _does_ have split personalities.

"Done," said Camicazi, tying and cutting the thread. "What was my time?"

Hiccup flexed his hand a bit. It was a little uncomfortable, but at least it had stopped bleeding. Camicazi picked up a roll of bandages and tightly bandaged Hiccup's hand to keep it from moving too much and pulling the stitches.

"There ya' go. Good as new," said Camicazi, satisfied with her work.

"Thanks, Camicazi," said Hiccup. He stood up and went to walk out the door, but stopped and quickly kissed Camicazi on the cheek.

"That's it?" she asked jokingly.

Hiccup smiled. "Dream on, Sunshine."

_A/N: Agh this was so hard for me to write! It was like a beast that kept eating me alive! I'm not good at slow chapters, let alone awkward fluffy chapters! I'm at a dead end with the next chapter, so please bare with me. I'll get through it... Also, I didn't know when Camicazi's actual birthday was, so I just gave her mine (July 2nd). Also, that Scauldron in the previous chapter needs a name. Any suggestions? R&R please! (next chapter might also be a little choppy, but I'm sorry. It'll get better after that!)_


	7. Snakebane and Flameheart

_A/N: I PROMISE IT PICKS UP AFTER THIS! REVIEWS NEEDED! Also, I bring back 3 of my favorite characters! Yay!_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 7**

**Snakebane and Flameheart**

Hiccup and Camicazi walked outside to see a... strange sight. Toothless was sprawled out on his back and squirming around like a dog with an itch. Stormfly was standing over him, fully awake, watching.

"Uh... What's going on out here?" asked Hiccup cautiously.

Toothless, still lying on his back, bent his head at an awkward angle to see Hiccup. "I hiccuped again."

"Is that fire still going? I thought it would have been suffocated by now," said Stormfly.

Toothless was still for a minute before getting up, revealing a large dark spot in the grass. He smiled sheepishly.

"I wonder why I-" Toothless stopped short before flipping over onto his back and launching another small fireball into the sky. "-keep hiccuping..."

The fireball exploded above them in a bright blue flash of light. Hiccup stifled a small laugh, muttering something about "distress flares."

"Don't worry Toothless," said Stormfly. "Every dragon gets the hiccup on one of their birthdays. You'll know they're over when you hiccup and a big fireball comes out. They stop after the big one."

"Well, that's reassuring," said Toothless as he got up again. Hiccup left Camicazi's side and began walking towards Toothless. However, he was suddenly tackled and knocked to the ground.

"Hiccup!" shouted Toothless.

Hiccup looked up at his attacker. Looking down at him was a large purple dragon with ice-blue eyes. At first, Hiccup didn't realize who it was because it was silhouetted by the sun, but he immediately knew when it spoke.

"SNAKEBAIT!" shouted the dragon.

The Monstrous Nightmare above Hiccup was suddenly tackled by two dragons, one emerald green and one light blue, at the same time, knocking it off of Hiccup.

Hiccup sat up and looked at the three dragons, rolling in the grass playing. Luna was the first to remove herself from the playful scuffle. She happily bounded over to Hiccup.

"You okay? Nothing broken?" Luna asked as she and Toothless helped Hiccup stand.

Hiccup took a deep breath to make sure no ribs had been busted, rolled his shoulders, swung his arms, and shifted his weight (all 50 pounds) around to check for damaged limbs. All checked out okay. But there _was_ that small area just below his ribcage that was still a little sore, but that was probably just from falling.

"Nope. I'm still intact," said Hiccup with a smile.

"Good. I just hope those two idiots-" she looked over her shoulder to the other two dragons playing, "-don't hurt themselves."

It had been a little longer than 2 months since Hiccup had last seen Luna (she had had a day off, so she came to visit), and it had been about 5 months since he had seen the Monstrous Nightmare or the Drifter Dragon, who the Monstrous Nightmare still called Drift. Camicazi's friend Sig had adopted Drift, and she probably renamed him.

Hiccup looked over at the wrestling dragons. Even though Drift was about as small as Toothless, he had managed to pin the Nightmare on it's back. With that, Drift jumped over the Nightmare and ran over to where Hiccup, Toothless, Camicazi, and Luna were standing.

"H...h...hey H...Hiccup," panted Drift. The young Drifter Dragon was wearing his saddle. It was the type of saddle that Healers generally use: longer than average, with pockets and extra clips to hold medical stuff. There were straps inside that could be pulled out so that the saddle could be used as a saddle stretcher. Drift wore it like a trophy.

"So," said Hiccup, "what's the new name?"

"Flameheart!" he said proudly. He sat up even straighter, his emerald green scales gleaming in the intense sunlight. The last time Hiccup had seen him was last winter, and he had been undomesticated. Now, after Sig had gotten her hands on Flameheart, the first thing she had probably done was give him a bath.

"But I still call him Drift," said Luna, a strange look on her face. Now that Hiccup thought about it, Luna was making the same puppy eyes at Flameheart as Toothless had been making at Stormfly (but she was way less obvious about it). Flameheart was occasionally glancing at Luna and smiling. Hiccup thought he saw his emerald scales darken some from a blush.

Suddenly, the purple Nightmare popped up out of _nowhere_ behind Flameheart, shaking dirt off of his scales. He was still unseen by Flameheart, so he took the opportunity to get revenge.

The Nightmare jumped Flameheart from behind, pinning him face down in the dirt.

"Payback!" screeched the Nightmare. He paused to look at Hiccup. "Hi Snakebait. Sorry for jumpin' ya'." With that, he turned back to Flameheart, who was squirming uncomfortably under the Nightmare's paws.

"Ohhh, this will be _sweet_," said the Nightmare. "I know your weakness Drift. I know that you're ticklish!" Flameheart got a bit pale. With that, the Nightmare stuck out it's tongue and prepared to make Flameheart laugh hard enough to wet himself.

"WAIT!" said Hiccup. The Nightmare paused, his forked tongue hanging out of his mouth, just over the back of Flameheart's horns.

"What's _that_?" asked Hiccup, pointing to a mark on the Nightmare's back. Looking closer, Hiccup saw that the mark was kinda in the shape of a... "Is that a _saddle mark_?"

The Nightmare was frozen.

"You found yourself a human, didn't you?" said Hiccup. He hadn't believed the wild and free, fun-loving, building-burning Monstrous Nightmare was actually telling the truth when he said he would find a human.

Luna smiled, and Flameheart attempted to smile from under the Nightmare's claws.

"So what's the new name?" asked Camicazi, who had been using her new necklace to follow the conversation.

At this point, Flameheart flipped over and the Nightmare tumbled off. Then both Flameheart and Luna shouted: "SNAKEBANE!"

"Snakebane?" asked Hiccup, thinking about how ironic _that_ name was. "Who's your human?"

"You might not know him," said Snakebane. "His name's Colin. He works down at the docks with his dad. Apparently, he and his dad have a winter house up right next door to that old abandoned shack that I burnt last winter."

"It's about time he got a human," said Luna. "He finally got a _bath_!"

"Not willingly," said Snakebane. "There were hundreds of Vorpents surrounding me! They backed me into a corner! And those little dragons may be small, but you know how poisonous they are, right?"

"Yes," deadpanned Hiccup.

"So there I was, trapped in a corner and surrounded by Venomous Vorpents! The only way to escape was to go through the window! So I lunged out, but I fell right into the sea! And when I came out, there stood my human, with a scrubber in his hand! And _that_ is how I took my first bath!" Snakebane bowed and waited for an applause.

"He's lying," said Luna. "Colin and his father tried to give Bane a bath, but he jumped out the window and ran off the 2-foot cliff into the harbor. Colin did follow him with a scrubber. That's how he took his _real_ first bath."

"Yeah, but I _thought_ I saw something yellow," muttered the Nightmare.

After everyone finished laughing, Toothless opened his mouth and was about to say something- probably the story on how Hiccup had to pretend to drown in order to get Toothless into the bath- but at that moment, he hiccuped one last time and a fireball, larger than the others, his the ground right in the middle of the circle that they were standing in.

All the other dragons yelped and reared back. Hiccup and Camicazi actually _fell_ back. This time, Hiccup made sure not to fall on his bad hand. Toothless jumped on the blaze again and stomped it out.

"SORRY!"

"Well," said Hiccup, "at least we know _that's_ over..."

_A/N: I just love those dragons! Remember: Moonshade Dragons, Drifter Dragons, Shadow Dragons, Dagger Claws, Black-Backed Shredders, Vine Dragons, and the upcoming Seashade Dragons are all MINE! Thanks to Annabeth The Unicorn for suggesting the name Colin. You know the drill: R&R and nobody gets hurt! _


	8. Distractions!

_A/N: Intro for things to start to pick up... (insert maniacal laugh here)_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 8**

**Distractions!**

Hiccup wanted to give Toothless his birthday present at sunset, because Toothless had hatched right after sunset. He had told Hiccup that he hatched on a cliff, overlooking the sea. There had been a crescent moon hanging low in the sky.

Hiccup looked up now. It had started to cool down to 100, because the sun was starting to set. He could also see a crescent moon in the now-pink sky. There still wasn't a cloud in sight.

Hiccup had Toothless's artificial tail fin in his arms as he made his way to the Forge, leaving the 4 dragons behind him playing. Hiccup had claimed that he saw a small rip in the fabric of the tail fin, and he took it to the Forge to "fix" it. Toothless wasn't suspicious.

Hiccup walked into the Forge to find it comfortably warm and empty (Gobber was on the trading expedition with Stoick). The heat of the Forge was more ambient, unlike the intense piercing heat from the death-ray of a sun. The familiar heat of the Forge warmed Hiccup from the inside, out. _This_ heat was welcoming. Plus, Hiccup loved the ashy campfire smell of the Forge that seemed to follow him everywhere.

With him, Hiccup had his original design for Toothless's first tail fin, and his bag filled with metal that he had spent about a month collecting.

He pulled back the curtain to the back room that he had made into an office, sat down at his desk, and got right to work.

**xxx**

"Hey, did you see where Hiccup went?" Camicazi asked Stormfly.

"No," she said. "Why don't you ask Toothless?"

"Good idea."

Toothless was wrestling with Snakebane. The little Night Fury had actually pinned Snakebane on his back. Snakebane was squirming and struggling to throw Toothless or at least get him off, but he was unable to. It was pretty comical.

"Toothless?" called Camicazi. Toothless looked up at her, then jumped over Snakebane and stood in front of Camicazi. Snakebane stood up and immediately tackled Flameheart, who had been talking with Luna.

"So, what's up little haystack?" asked Toothless (even though Camicazi still had her hair pulled back).

Camicazi smiled. "I'm never gonna get used to understanding you," she said to herself. "So, have you seen Hiccup?"

"He went to the Forge. He took my tail fin up there too," said Toothless, bringing his tail up in front of him. "He said there was a rip, but I think he's modifying it or something."

"Yeah, Stormfly told me it was your birthday today!"

Toothless nodded happily.

"Well happy birthday," said Camicazi, giving Toothless a hug.

"Thanks," said Toothless.

"If I find out what your present is, do you want me to tell you?"

"Nah. Let me be surprised."

Camicazi nodded, then began to make her way up to the Forge.

Hiccup must have been melting metal, because the Forge was hotter than normal, and there was smoke floating from the exhaust chamber in the roof.

"Hiccup?" Camicazi called out. She heard no response. She rounded the corner and found Hiccup leaning on the wall, his head in his hands. "Are you okay?"

Hiccup looked up at her. There was a small cut on his face. He looked kinda pale.

He cleared his throat. "Y-yeah... I'm fine. I kinda tripped and face-planted. Hit my head pretty hard..." He pushed his hair back from his forehead and revealed a large bruise forming. "I'm fine. I feel a bit dizzy, and _really_ stupid, but I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" asked Camicazi. She put her hand to Hiccup's face, feeling his temperature. "You're a _bit_ warm, but it's not enough to be called a fever."

"Probably just because I was just heating metal over the _fire_," said Hiccup sarcastically.

"Yeah, probably," said Camicazi. "So... what are you working on?"

"Actually, I just finished!" he said excitedly. "I was making a birthday present for Toothless!"

"What is it?" asked Camicazi. She promised she wouldn't tell Toothless, but that didn't mean she couldn't know herself.

Hiccup smiled slyly. "I think I should wait and show you. I'm gonna give Toothless his present at sunset, so be at my house around that time."

"It's a date," said Camicazi.

Hiccup's throat clenched in an attempt to _not_ make his "happy sound," which sounded a lot like someone's dragon bit a cat, but a lot more high-pitched. Camicazi didn't seem to notice Hiccup biting his lip.

"So, can you at least give me a hint?" asked Camicazi in a sugar-sweet voice, making puppy dog eyes at Hiccup.

Hiccup was brain-dead for a second. He had never _ever_ seen Camicazi _beg_ or _pout_ before! Using her looks against him? Sneaky. She actually looked really...

Hiccup mentally slapped himself. "Uh..." he stuttered before clearing his throat and regaining his paper-thin composure. "Well, I don't think I _can_ give you any hints. They all give away too much. I guess you're just gonna have to wait." He smiled.

Camicazi sighed. "Well, then you owe me something for disappointing me." She was really playing up the fact that she was an incredibly attractive girl. This was really the first time she had intimidated Hiccup with her looks.

"I'll give you _this_," said Hiccup. He leaned in and kissed her. She kissed him back, the Mood Scale on her necklace turning pinkish-orange.

The kiss lasted for about 30 seconds before: "Am I... _interrupting_ something?"

Hiccup and Camicazi pulled apart as if electrocuted. Snakebane was standing in the door, feeling really awkward but covering it up with his elated sense of humor.

Hiccup blushed so deep you couldn't see his freckles. The Mood Scale on Camicazi's necklace turned from an excited pinkish-orange to a deep scarlet blush.

"Uh... w-w-what do you need?" stuttered Hiccup. He and Camicazi avoided eye contact.

"I kinda wanted to know where you guys disappeared to," said Snakebane.

"Uh... I'll be right back!" said Hiccup, running into the back room that was his office. He came back out holding something long and thin, all bundled up in leathery cloth. There was a burlap sack hanging from his shoulder. "Snakebane, Camicazi, I need you two to distract Toothless."

Snakebane immediately stood at attention, sitting bolt upright with a determined expression on his face. He was looking up, so it looked like he was cross-eyed. His head almost hit the ceiling. His tail was in the still-burning fire, but he failed to notice.

His expression cracked into a maniacal grin. "Alright gummy, we're goin' ta' war!" said Snakebane in a strange accent, a slightly demented look in his eyes. Thor only knows why he used the accent, but he sounded like an experienced blood-thirsty war veteran. It made Hiccup and Camicazi take a step back.

"BONZAI!" yelled Snakebane, charging out the door. The second he was clear of the door, he spontaneously combusted into an energetic ball of hyped up flaming dragon!

"**YAAAHHHHH!**" he shouted, charging right at Toothless. Hiccup was glad that he had taken Toothless's saddle (and all other flammable materials) off.

"Gah!" was all Toothless managed to get out before the adrenaline-fueled fireball tackled him.

"Go," Camicazi whispered to Hiccup. Hiccup nodded, gathered up the cloth-covered item, and ran (uh... stumbled) as fast as he could to his house. Camicazi was right behind him; following him into the house, and closing the door when they were both inside.

"Alright, keep watch," said Hiccup. Camicazi nodded and stayed by the door. Hiccup gave her a thumbs-up and scampered up the stairs to the loft (Hiccup's new room was on the ground floor). He quickly hid the present, then proceeded down the stairs.

Going down was always the hardest. Hiccup had to remember to avoid the 7th step from the bottom. That one _always_ tripped him up whenever he wasn't careful.

When he made it down, he saw Camicazi peeking out the door. "Is someone coming?" he asked.

Camicazi laughed, then gestured for Hiccup to come look.

"Oh great," said Hiccup, trying to keep from laughing himself. Toothless was eagerly playing with the _still_-flaming Snakebane, and they were rolling through the dirt and grass playing. Luna, Flameheart, and Stormfly were following behind them, putting out the fires that Snakebane's scales had accidentally set.

Hiccup and Camicazi seemed to be the only ones to notice that Toothless and Snakebane were rolling right towards the harbor...

"I wanna see this," said Hiccup. He and Camicazi set off running for the soon-to-be wet dragons.

Luna was the first to realize where they were heading, but they were already at the edge. "Hey!"

_SPLASH!_

Toothless and Snakebane came up and out so fast that you would think the water was full of eels. They were both dripping wet, shaking, staring wide-eyed into space. Snakebane had been extinguished the second he hit the water, but his scales were still slightly smoldering.

Everyone was silent, but then all that had _not_ been dunked simultaneously started laughing. Toothless and Snakebane exchanged glances for the briefest moment, and then the next thing they knew, Luna, Flameheart, Stormfly, Hiccup, and Camicazi were all in the water. There was another splash as Stormfly pulled Toothless back in, and then a second splash as Snakebane jumped in again.

"I got lonely," he told Hiccup, who was clinging to Toothless's neck in order to stay afloat (his prosthetic didn't float well).

Everyone started laughing, but a frightened _yelp_ from Hiccup silenced everything.

"SOMETHING JUST TOUCHED MY LEG! **THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE WATER!**"

Everyone quickly swam towards the shore, but carefully so as not to make a splash. They were about 10 feet away when a spiked fin broke the surface...

...and made a beeline right for Snakebane.

"**AAAAHHHHH!"**

_A/N: Snakebane's quote: "Alright gummy, we're goin' ta' war!" comes from the movie FernGully, from the character Batty, played by Robin Williams. I scared myself with the ending of this chapter. (evil laugh) WHAT likes to feed at sunset? So, R&R and no one gets hurt! You know the drill (oh no, not the drill!)._


	9. When the Sun Sets

_A/N: This is where you find out what the problem is._

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 9**

**When the Sun Sets**

Snakebane shot out of the water and fluttered around like a bat out of hell. He was about 400 feet in the air, and still screaming bloody murder.

The second Snakebane had had his panic attack, Luna, Flameheart, Toothless- with Hiccup around his neck-, and Stormfly- with Camicazi on her back- shot out of the water too.

They all landed safely on dry land. Flameheart looked up at the speck that was Snakebane. He was now about a thousand feet up, and still going.

"I'd better go calm him down before he passes out," said Flameheart. He spread his wide, parachute-like wings. With just a slight jump, he was soaring.

Hiccup gasped. He had never seen the Drifter fly before, and now he was gazing up, watching the dragon soar higher into the cloudless evening sky. He understood why the dragon had gotten the nickname Drift. He was hardly flapping, using his parachute-shaped wings to catch thermals and drift upwards, quickly and steadily.

After a minute, the green speck met the purple speck, and they both started to descend. It was then that Hiccup looked back into the water. He just saw a long, dark, serpentine shape disappearing. The shape was attached to the very dark green spiked fin that had broken the surface. Whatever it was was gone now.

_What _was_ that?_ Hiccup wondered. He didn't really know of that many serpents that fit the description of what they had just encountered.

He couldn't identify the fin, even though he was _sure_ he had seen it somewhere. The shape was vaguely familiar too, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. The water wasn't warm enough for it to be a Sharkworm. Those beasties only stayed in the Summer Currents.

Hiccup looked down at his right leg, the leg the creature bumped against. He knew it had to be a dragon, because he had felt the wing joint right afterward. The dragon's shoulder must have brushed him. The pant leg was cut, but not his actual leg.

"Did anybody catch a glimpse at _what_ that was?" asked Hiccup.

Luna shook her head. "I only saw the fin. But I _know_ I've seen a fin like that before..."

"That's what I was thinking," said Hiccup and Toothless at the exact same time. Toothless turned to Hiccup. "I know I've seen whatever that was somewhere!"

"Wait, do you know what _kind_ of dragon that was?" asked Camicazi.

Hiccup shook his head. "It's body was too skinny for it to be a Scauldron, and the water's not exactly warm enough for Sharkworms." Camicazi, Hiccup, and Toothless all visibly shuddered at the thought of Sharkworms.

At that moment, Flameheart and Snakebane touched down. Snakebane was panting and shaking, still clearly terrified. Drift hadn't even broken a sweat.

"What... was... THAT?" gasped Snakebane. "And why did it go for _me_?"

"Maybe it's because you're the fattest," suggested Drift, even though Snakebane had the narrow build of a snake (_again,_ no pun intended!).

"Shut up or I'll eat your face!" said Snakebane. Everyone was shocked. Normally, Snakebane would have come up with a really funny come-back, but this time, he was so scared that even his humor had stopped!

"We better take him home," said Luna.

"Let's go, little buddy," said Flameheart, nudging Snakebane along. Snakebane's eyes were wide and traumatized. He was still trembling.

Hiccup, Camicazi, and Toothless watched as Luna and Flameheart led Snakebane to his human's house.

"Hope he's okay," said Camicazi.

"Yeah," said Hiccup. He looked up at the darkening sky, then looked out over the sea. The sun was starting to set. _Oh crap!_

"Let's go Toothless," said Hiccup. "Camicazi, Stormfly, wanna come?"

"Where are you going?" asked Camicazi.

"My house," said Hiccup.

"Ohh," said Camicazi, remembering what Hiccup had told her earlier. "I'm in!"

"Stormfly?" asked Hiccup.

Stormfly didn't respond. She was sitting at the edge of the harbor, looking into the water, deep in thought.

_Could it really be... No, no I haven't seen her in years! But then again... Maybe..._ Stormfly sighed. "Nah," she said out loud. "What are the odds that it would be-"

"STORMFLY!" yelled Camicazi. Stormfly jumped, almost falling back into the water.

"WHAT! WHAT?"

"Are you coming or not?" asked Camicazi, walking up beside her Mood Dragon. Stormfly's scales had been navy blue, which is the color they turn when she's deep in thought or concentrating.

"Oh, yeah sure. I'm coming." She turned her back to the water and started to follow Camicazi towards Hiccup's house, when she heard a small splash behind her.

Looking over her shoulder, Stormfly just saw the very same dark green spiked fin dip below the surface. A tail rose up from the water and whipped back and forth for a second before disappearing again. It had just waved.

Stormfly smiled. "I knew it."

**xxx**

"Alright, just wait here," said Hiccup excitedly. They were in his house. It was time for Hiccup to give Toothless his birthday present. The sun was setting now.

Toothless, Camicazi, and Stormfly sat in Hiccup's room, and Hiccup left to run up the stairs.

Stormfly was still staring out the window facing the west. Toothless padded over and stood next to her. Her scales were gold, and the reflected sunlight made her look like a goddess.

The temperature had finally dropped to 95 degrees outside, and there was a slight, cool breeze blowing in off the sea. The sun was half way below the horizon, and dropping fast.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Toothless.

"The other dragon in the water. The one that scared Snakebane out of his scales," said Stormfly. "I think I might know that dragon."

"Well," said Toothless, "who do you-"

He was cut off by Stormfly. "Oh look! I love watching the sun set." She looked out over the water as the sea, sky, and land seemed to turn orange, as if the whole world had been set alight. Stormfly leaned her head on Toothless's shoulder. "Happy birthday."

Toothless leaned over to Stormfly and gave her a gentle lick on the cheek. Stormfly's Mood Scales turned a little pink around the edges. Together they sat and watched the sun set.

Toothless wanted to capture this moment forever. He wanted to be with Stormfly. He loved her.

"Stormfly," whispered Toothless so that only she could hear him.

"Yes," she whispered back.

"I lo-" he was cut off by the crash of something falling. Gasping, he whipped around. Stormfly jumped to her feet too. But Camicazi was already at the door. She opened it and ran into the hall. The dragons heard her gasp.

Toothless sprinted to where Camicazi was standing. He gasped too, for lying pale and unconscious at the base of the stairs was Hiccup.

He had collapsed just as the sun dipped below the horizon.

_A/N: I would have updated earlier, but it was my aunt's birthday, and we went out to dinner to celebrate. Here's my problem: the time span from the end of this story to the beginning of the next story is about half a year. If you have any suggestions for a short story I can write to fill that gap, by all means, let me know! R&R and nobody gets hurt! =)_


	10. What Just Happened?

_A/N: Hi. Sorry for the delay. I have to alternate between stories, and this one is really picking up. Again, sorry for leaving you guys hanging!_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 10**

**What Just Happened?**

"WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" screeched Toothless, dangerously close to having a complete heart attack.

"Hiccup? Hiccup, can you hear me?" asked Camicazi, kneeling down by Hiccup's head. He still wasn't responding. In fact, it didn't look like he was _breathing_!

Camicazi put the back of her hand on Hiccup's forehead, only to quickly pull back. "He's burning up!" she said. She put her hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat and check and see if he was breathing, but she noticed something strange. Although his face was burning with a fever, the rest of his body was ice cold. But she still felt a heartbeat. Barely.

It seemed like he was having trouble breathing; his breath coming in labored gasps. There was a blood stain on the pant leg above his right knee, probably from the tumble he took down the stairs.

There was a tremor in his right hand. Camicazi took his ice cold hand in hers to try and steady it, but then Hiccup coughed a bit, and a tremor shook his entire body. His ice cold hand became burning hot.

"What's wrong with him?" wailed Toothless. Toothless looked over Hiccup again and noticed something. "Camicazi," he whispered.

"What is it?" she asked, looking up at Toothless.

"Look at his hand," he whispered. Camicazi looked at the hand she was holding and gasped. Blood was soaking through the bandage, and the edge of the blood stain looked green.

"Help me move him," Camicazi said to Toothless. Toothless laid his wing down on the ground, and Camicazi gently lifted and moved Hiccup onto the wing.

Toothless gently lifted his wing and followed Camicazi. "Let's take him into his room," she said.

They walked into Hiccup's room, and Toothless put his wing on the bed. Camicazi gently lifted Hiccup again and settled him onto the bed. Hiccup moaned as more tremors racked his thin frame.

"What's wrong with him?" Toothless asked again.

"I don't know," said Camicazi. "Stormfly! Run back over to the house and grab that really thick book from the shelf! The red leather one!"

Stormfly nodded and bounded out the door.

"What's the book for?" asked Toothless.

"It's an old medicine manual. It's got about every disease imaginable in there. Sig lent it to me."

Hiccup coughed again, wincing in pain.

"It's okay Hiccup, everything's gonna be okay," whispered Camicazi. She took his right hand and gently unwrapped the bandage. She gasped at what she saw.

The stitches had been _dissolved_, and the inflamed skin around the wound was slightly _green_! "What the hell?" muttered Camicazi.

The door to the room opened and Stormfly ran in, carrying a large, worn out book in her jaws. She dropped the book gently in Camicazi's arms, but then ran out again.

Camicazi opened the book and flipped through numerous pages before finally slowing down.

Camicazi muttered something to herself about symptoms, then stopped at a page and squinted at the words. "Here we go," she exclaimed.

"WHAT WHAT WHAT?" asked Toothless.

"This has _some_ of the symptoms, but it's the closest I can find. Okay, has he been really dizzy lately?"

"Yeah. He collapsed earlier. But he told me it was just from heat exhaustion!"

"Okay, and did he tell you if his chest was hurting?"

"He didn't tell me, but I could sense it."

"Earlier today, did he have a bit of a fever?"

"Didn't everyone in this heat?"

"Good point. What else did you notice that was weird?"

"Nothing! Well... I think his heart rate was kinda high, but the only time I could tell was when we were flying, and it's normally high when we fly."

Camicazi put two fingers to Hiccup's neck and checked his pulse. "Toothless, can you count to 15 for me? Just let me know when you get there."

"Okay... Oos, doos, twa, etc." Toothless counted to 15, and by the time he got to it, Camicazi looked worried and pale. She muttered something to herself before saying: "Wow... His heart rate is about 240!"

"Is that bad?" asked Toothless.

"Well, considering the fact that a normal human's heart rate at rest is usually about 70 or 80, I'd say it's pretty bad."

Toothless whimpered, leaning closer to Hiccup.

"All of his symptoms are here. Have you... have you seen _this_ lately?" asked Camicazi, holding up the book for Toothless to see. Toothless squinted at the picture on the page for a second before recognizing it.

"Yeah, we saw one of those today," said Toothless. The picture was of a stalk of spur grass, with abnormally long spurs and a strange greenish color. "Hiccup got one of those spurs lodged into his wrist. That's why he came to see you earlier."

"He did WHAT? He got stuck by one of those spurs? They're POISONOUS! That's why they're green!" Camicazi took a shaky sigh. "How did you get it out?"

"W-w-well, H-Hiccup tried to just p-pull it out, b-but it k-kept deflating whenever he g-g-grabbed it," Toothless choked out. "I-is there a cure?"

"It's okay Toothless. Calm down and let me read what it says." Toothless sniffled, then took a shaky breath and nodded.

"Okay, _this disease is commonly called Spurotia._ How original. _The toxin that causes Spurotia is only found in the green spur grasses on Berk. When the victim gets stuck with a poisonous spur is not when the poison enters the system, but when they try to pull it out._ That's probably why it deflated. That was poison in there. _The symptoms do not show up until the evening of the Summer Solstice. _You already know all the symptoms. _The Summer Solstice is when the poison's toxicity level is at it's greatest. You could have been poisoned for half a year and the poison wouldn't have affected you in any way until the sun sets on the Summer Solstice. The second the sun dips below the horizon, the poison is activated, and the victim collapses unconscious. The toxin is paralyzing, and sometimes tricky. Sometimes the symptoms fade away for a while, but relapse twice as hard. Some effects of the poison itself are: coughing up blood, violent tremors, loss of consciousness for extended periods of time, fiery pain in the chest at random times, and _of course _fever. If the victim is not cured by dawn, then they will die. Their heart will stop the second the first beam of sunlight reaches them. This is when the poison kills the plant too._"

"IS THERE A CURE?"

Camicazi was quiet for a minute, reading. Then she smiled... but her smile didn't last long.

"WHAT IS IT?" yelped Toothless. "Is. There. A. Cure?"

"Yes. There are two cures, but it's too late for one of them."

"W-what's the one that it's too late for?"

"Cut off the injection point. The poison's already spread too far, and I'd be damned if I had to cut off his arm too!"

Toothless' jaw was on the ground. "NO! What's the other cure?"

"Um... it's this flower called a Moondew flower," said Camicazi, showing Toothless a picture. The flower was pure white and crescent shaped. Toothless had never seen a flower like it before.

"Is it on Berk?" asked Toothless, seeing as he couldn't read Norse.

"Well, that's kinda where the problem is. It says here that it _has_ been found on Berk a few times before. _But_ it doesn't say _where_, it only says that the location of this flower can only be found by air."

Toothless' shoulders hunched over some. "What else does it say?"

"It says that the Moondew flower only blooms on the night of the Summer Solstice, and they also die at dawn. It's slightly fluorescent at night, so that should help."

"They only bloom one night a year... and they die at dawn... this is the shortest night of the year... so if we don't find it..."

Toothless trailed off as Hiccup coughed and moaned. He slowly blinked his eyes open.

"Hiccup! Are you okay? What happened?" asked Toothless, inches from Hiccup's face.

Hiccup moaned again before saying, "I got dizzy... and I... tripped... down the stairs..." He had to stop every so often and grind his teeth. Something must have been hurting him, but Toothless couldn't tell _what_ exactly.

"Hiccup, we think you might be poisoned!" Camicazi burst out.

Normally, Hiccup would have argued, but he must have really been feeling like crap, because he said: "Makes sense. I've been feeling like crap all day. So... what was it?"

"The spur," said Toothless.

Hiccup moaned. Camicazi put a cool rag on his forehead. "Is there a cure?" he asked.

Camicazi filled Hiccup in on what she had told Toothless. However, instead of looking defeated like Toothless had, he just looked thoughtful. There was a little inventive spark in his eye.

"Camicazi, there's something next to the stairs that I dropped when I fell. It's wrapped up, but can you bring it in here?"

"Uh... sure," said Camicazi. She ran out of the room, then came back a few seconds later with the object in her hands. She handed it to Hiccup.

Hiccup pulled the leather wrapping off and held it up to Toothless. "Happy birthday..."

It was Toothless' tail fin attachment. It didn't look any different except for one thing: the part where his actual tail fin would go. It looked like there was a skeleton of the left side; just the left side without any aerodynamic fabric.

"Let me see your tail," said Hiccup. Toothless laid his tail on the bed next to Hiccup. Hiccup strapped on the fin like he normally would, but then he took the skeletal part and fitted the ends to Toothless' organic fin. The rods were right over top of the bones in the tail fin. So _this_ is what Hiccup had been collecting metal for!

"Try it out," said Hiccup, already falling back asleep.

"So, what's it supposed to..." Toothless trailed off as he flexed his right tail fin. The left prosthetic did the same. Toothless was controlling his own prosthetic tail fin!

"Put it to good use," said Hiccup in a tired voice. Toothless started to thank Hiccup with all his heart, but Hiccup had already faded away again.

The door to the room opened and Stormfly walked in. She was soaking wet.

"I got some help!" she panted.

"Uh... Why are you all wet?" asked Camicazi.

"I'll explain later! What's going on with Hiccup?"

Toothless filled her in on everything she had missed.

"You two have to find that cure," said Camicazi. "I'll stay here with Hiccup and make sure he's okay."

The door opened again and Luna walked in. "I'll stay too," she said.

"Were you listening from outside the window?" asked Toothless.

"Maybe. But I'll stay with Camicazi and Hiccup and keep them safe. I've just got that feeling that they're probably gonna need it."

"What if we need you for something?" asked Toothless.

"We already figured that one out," said Stormfly. "We send up a flare. You and I shoot up a flare together if we need her. You and Drift send up a flare if there's danger coming."

"Yeah," said Luna. "I'll come if I see a blue and orange flare, and I'll pray that I don't see a blue and green one."

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Toothless.

"You guys should really get going!" said Camicazi. "It's the shortest night of the year! The clock's already started ticking, and you need to hurry. If you don't find the cure, Hiccup will be dead by dawn..."

_A/N: Yay, now we're getting somewhere! R&R and I might let Hiccup keep his hand and the left side of his ribcage!_


	11. The Team and the Mission

_A/N: I'm so sorry for not updating in a while. I had to burn down my writers block. I'm sure you've all suffered from the progressive contagious flesh-eating disease that is writers block. It sucks. But I'm back. Sorry if this chapter is short. =\_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 11**

**The Team and the Mission**

Stormfly led Toothless outside. Sitting outside was Drift and Snakebane.

"Hey guys," said Toothless. That was when he noticed what Snakebane looked like. "Uh, Snakebane, what's wrong?"

Snakebane was sitting bolt upright, tense and kinda pale. He gestured with his head behind him. Toothless looked past Snakebane, and he didn't have to look that long to see what was freaking out the larger dragon.

A pair of sea-green eyes shone brightly in the dying light. The owner of the eyes stepped forward. At first, Toothless didn't recognize it, but when he did, he gasped. The first thing he recognized was the fin on the dragon's back. The deep green spiked fin. This was the dragon that had scared the burning fires out of Snakebane, who still appeared traumatized.

"Hello," said the dragon in a voice smoother than silk. The dragon was female, first of all. It's scales were deep blue, and it had a long, thin, serpent-like build. There were deep green barbs on it's back, starting at her wing joint and extending all the way to the tip of her tail. They were poisonous, Toothless knew from experience. An infant dragon of the same breed as this one had once accidentally poisoned Hiccup, but the poison had been premature, so it hardly had any effects. Hiccup still had the scar between his shoulder blades, and he kept the barb.

"So, you're Toothless?" asked the she-dragon.

"Yep," said Toothless.

"I'm Quiver. Nice to meet ya," said Quiver.

"Um, do you mind if I ask what breed of dragon you are? My human and I came across a dragon like you before, and I was just wondering..."

"I'm called a Seashade dragon, and I know _exactly_ who your human is. My brother was the one who poisoned him last year."

"That was _your_ brother?" gasped Toothless.

Quiver nodded. "Yeah, sorry about him."

Stormfly looked over at Toothless, casting him a look that said: _you better explain._ Toothless nodded a bit.

"Well, alright team, back on track! We have until dawn to find a Moondew flower. They kinda glow at night, so finding one shouldn't be that difficult. Failure is NOT an option! We should start at the Highest Peak and go down from there! I don't want to risk splitting up." Now Toothless lowered his voice. "The Rebels haven't been acting up since Ru- I mean, their leader, was killed, but they're still out there. Do _not_ split up unless it's an emergency. Everybody got it?"

The group nodded their heads.

"Alright," said Toothless. "Flying formation. I'll take point. Stormfly, I'll need you on my left. Drift, you're gonna be flying low. Use your gods given ability to not need to flap. Snakebane, Quiver, you'll take up the rear. You two are the largest dragons out of all of us, so you two should have a better chance at fighting off any enemy that would attack from behind. Clear?"

"Why do I have to fly next to _her_?" whined Snakebane.

Quiver whipped around and got snout-to-snout with Snakebane, her green eyes blazing. Snakebane's eyes widened and he looked at Quiver through crossed eyes. "What's the matter _Gummy_? You got a complaint, you can talk to the tail!" Quiver turned away from Snakebane and flicked her tail, venomous barbs and all, in Snakebane's face. Snakebane blinked as if he had just been slapped.

"You just got _dissed_," whispered Drift.

When Quiver was out of ear-shot, Snakebane leaned over to Toothless and said: "If anyone should have the nickname Gummy, I thought it would be you." Snakebane was obviously thinking of earlier when he had called Toothless Gummy, and claimed they were "goin' ta' war..." Toothless didn't know about that claim yet.

Toothless shook his head. "Whatever."

Turning to the others, Toothless called out: "Let's go!" Then he jumped gracefully into the air and soared, his new tail working beautifully. Albeit it was a little strange to Toothless, not to have Hiccup's thin 50 pound frame on his back. He didn't even have his saddle on. It was a strange ghost-like feeling.

The thought of Hiccup and what was at stake reclaimed center stage in Toothless' mind, and he got focused back on the mission. "Everyone meet at the Peak. We'll fly in formation from there," Toothless called out. The truth was, he really wanted to test his new gift. With a single beat of his majestic wings, Toothless shot up into the night sky, doing barrel rolls all the way up.

After about 30 seconds, Toothless cleared his head and focused again. He flew higher until he saw the mile-high mountainous land-form so commonly called the Peak. Arching his back, he beat his powerful wings and streaked across the summer sky, finally settling on the peak of the Peak.

Toothless could see for miles and miles in every direction. It was so clear, without a single cloud in sight. The stars lit the heavens like millions of fireflies, dancing across the inky vastness. He looked out over the dark, endless seas surrounding the island, and he imagined that from this distance he could see the waterfall that was the very end of the world itself. He could imagine soaring even higher until he could see the whole archipelago laid out before him. When he thought of that, he finally realized just how small they all are compared to everything else out there. Even then, Toothless wished he could capture this moment forever.

Looking out as far as he could, Toothless could just see the Meathead islands to the east, and casting his piercing eyes out farther, he could _just_ see the island of Dark Deep, a place he and Hiccup had discovered not long ago on one of their midnight flights.

_If only Hiccup were here with me now,_ thought Toothless.

Once again refocusing his mind, Toothless cast his eyes down on Berk. He could see the torches from Berk in the distance, and he could also see his team steadily soaring up towards him. Drift was the closest, followed by Stormfly, and then Snakebane and Quiver. Poor Quiver. The aquatic dragon must have had several nosebleeds by now, seeing as she was used to the crushing pressure of hundreds of feet of water and not the thin air of high altitudes.

As Toothless waited for the rest of the team, he thought back to the first time he and Hiccup had ever seen a Seashade dragon.

_It had been Hiccup's birthday. He and Toothless were out flying, enjoying the rare warm weather. They had been flying over the ocean, about 50 feet above the water, when a pair of Seashade dragons had appeared behind them._

Now, Seashade dragons were some of the most harmless, peaceful dragons out there... well, unless you somehow provoke them.

_The younger dragon had been an infant, a hatchling, barely old enough to fly. The other one had been it's mother. The little dragon had gotten a bit too curious, and it got closer to Hiccup and Toothless, coming from behind. It must have been the gleam from a metal part of the artificial tail fin that spooked the dragon, because it freaked and slung its tail around like a bull whip, flinging the barb on the tip of its tail in the general direction of Hiccup and Toothless._

_The shot in the dark hit Hiccup right between the shoulder blades. He passed out immediately and they crash-landed in the freezing cold water. The current had pulled Hiccup towards one of the rock cliffs off the coast, and Hiccup had smashed into it before the undertow dragged him down. Luckily, the mother Seashade had been there, because she pulled Hiccup out of the water. Hiccup woke up later that same day, freezing cold, dehydrated, and with a splitting headache and a new scar. Other than that and a few tiny side effects from the undeveloped poison, he was perfectly fine._

Toothless hoped he would pull through this time.

There was a _thunk_ as Drift landed next to Toothless, shaking him out of his thoughts. Stormfly shortly followed suit, then Snakebane, and last but not least, Quiver. She didn't look like she was having that many negative effects from the high elevation, and good thing too. Toothless needed everyone on top of their game.

"Everybody ready?" asked Toothless.

"Can... we... rest... for a... minute?" gasped Snakebane.

"Man... up," Quiver gasped at him.

Toothless looked at Drift and Stormfly. Drift seemed fine, and Stormfly was only panting a little bit. "Okay, let's rest for a minute," said Toothless. "I know how hard it is to fly up here."

Snakebane and Quiver flopped down on the ground at the exact same time. Toothless knew that certain species of dragons were more prone to asthma than others, and these two had it bad.

It made sense that Snakebane would have asthma; he lights himself on fire three times a day! A lot of that smoke gets into his lungs (not to mention how much it must mess with his sanity and brain), which is why most Monstrous Nightmares have asthma.

On the other end of the spectrum, Quiver must just be used to breathing underwater, and she definitely wasn't used to _this_ altitude.

Either way, it would just get easier from here for all of them.

Or so he thought...

_A/N: I was writing this while listening to "If Everyone Cared," by Nickelback, and there's a part that goes like: "as we lie, beneath the stars, we realize, how small we are," and I just had to include that part. Please review; it'll help burn the ashes of my writers block. =D _


	12. The Lookout

_A/N: I know, it's short. Sorry. But it's REALLY important! Thanks for all the great reviews. _

_x-RAZGRIZ-o: I have never read that book, but I'll look into it. =) On with the story!_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 12**

**The Lookout**

A young Black-Back Shredder sat in int foliage of the tree that was his lookout point. From there, he could easily see the human village. However, he had had a difficult time getting up there in the first place, and it was probably because of his build.

He had a long, slim neck and tail. That would normally work as an advantage while hiding, except for a few particular things: first of all, his breed of dragon has no individual front legs. They use the bat-like claws on their wings to walk. This made hiding in the tree... difficult. Another addition that was helpful in battle but now in hiding were his back claws. He had a normal set of talons, but he also had another set, facing backwards, coming out of his heels. His second set kept getting caught on the thick tree bark, but he eventually managed to settle in a comfortable position.

No more than 5 minutes later, a shadowy, cloaked figure walked by the base of the tree. Looking down and staying quiet, the Shredder observed the figure.

It had still been light out, but the shade from the tree canopy blocked most of the sunlight, and it didn't help that the cloak the figure wore covered everything except it's mouth. Without a clear view of the suspect, the Shredder stayed put.

_I wonder why they're wearing that cloak in this heat,_ thought the Shredder.

Suddenly, a ball of blue fire flew into the air and exploded above the human village. The fire of a Night Fury.

The figure's head snapped up and it looked at the flare. It smiled an evil, toothy grin. With that, the cloaked figure hobbled forward and disappeared from sight.

_I have no idea who that was,_ thought the Shredder, _but I hope I never see them again._

**xxx**

The Shredder stayed in his tree until nightfall. It's tired eyes stayed fixed on the human village. Just as he started nodding off, he saw something: a black blur shooting out of the village, towards the Peak. This blur was followed by a golden blur, not flying as fast as the Night Fury.

_So, that's the Night Fury, and that one behind him is his partner. Two dragons against 20? No problem._

The Shredder's tired, blurry eyes had only picked up on Toothless and Stormfly. Toothless blocked out the stars, and Stormfly's gold scales had glinted a bit in the starlight. The other three dragons remained undetected.

_Okay, so the Night Fury and his acquaintance are at the Peak. I gotta go tell the Boss!_

The Shredder made to jump out of the tree and fly to the Boss, but something stopped him.

_Maybe I should wait a bit. This Night Fury can be unpredictable._ So the Shredder stayed put. After a while, he sighed. _Why am I here? That dragon didn't do anything to me... Well, he killed my father in a fight, but my father was a jackass. He deserved it._

The Shredder sighed, so deep in thought that it didn't even feel the branch it was on shake. It looked up at the Peak.

A few seconds later, he could see the Night Fury, black against the cliff side, flying off and around. The Fury was followed by not one dragon, like the Shredder had previously suspected, but by _three_ dragons.

_Four dragons against 20? Sure_, the Shredder thought. Sighing, it turned around to take off...

...and came snout to snout with Snakebane.

_A/N: I refuse to give any hints as to who the cloaked figure is. If you want to guess, please write your guess in a review or PM me. I will always reply with either: "Good guess," or "Maybe."_


	13. The Search and The Scar

_A/N: Let me know if you cried. Also, if you wanna know who Brightclaw is, read my one-shot called One Year Later._

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 13**

**The Search and The Scar**

"Who are you?" asked Snakebane, cocking his head to the side. The Black-Back Shredder realized that this dragon didn't want to attack him; he didn't even seem to know he was a Rebel.

"Who are _you_?" the Shredder asked.

"I asked first," said Snakebane.

"I asked second."

"Smart by. I'm Snakebane. You?"

"My name's Pike," said the Shredder.

"Pike? Isn't that some kind of weapon?" asked Snakebane.

"Isn't snakebane some kind of toxic plant?"

"Touche," growled Snakebane. "So, what were you doing up here in this tree?"

"I was just hanging out. Hiding from my girlfriend," lied Pike. He kept his claws hidden by the foliage. If Snakebane saw his claws, he might recognize his species! "What about you?"

"Well, I'm looking-" Snakebane was cut off by Toothless, flying above the trees.

"Snakebane, where the hell are you?" yelled Toothless.

"Who was that?" asked Pike, trying to see through the foliage.

"I gotta go. See ya later Pike," called Snakebane as he jumped out of the tree and flew into the air.

_He's weird, but cool,_ Pike thought. With that, Pike jumped off the branch, flying low through the trees and towards the eastern face of the island, where his boss, the Beast, was hiding.

**xxx**

"Did you find anyone?" Toothless asked.

"Just one dragon. But I seriously doubt he was part of the Rebel group," said Snakebane.

"How do you know?" Stormfly asked, flying along side.

"He didn't try and kill me," answered Snakebane.

"Maybe he was thrown off because you already smell like a dead animal," Drift yelled up from where he was flying below. Quiver laughed, scrunching up her nose as if she had smelled something rancid.

"If I didn't have such an awesome sense of humor, I might think you were trying to _insult_ me," Snakebane called back down to Drift.

They were flying in a strange formation. Drift was barely skimming the tree tops, using his gliding ability. He hadn't flapped his wings for about 15 minutes. About 100 feet above Drift, the other four were flying. Toothless had the lead with Stormfly flying slightly behind him on the left. Snakebane and Quiver took up the rear. At the moment, they were arguing about what smelled worse: dragon dung for eels.

"Well dragon crap smells just like eels!"

"How would you know? You eat both for breakfast?"

THWACK!

"Gah!"

Toothless shook his head at their childish antics.

"So do you really think that dragon was a Rebel?" Stormfly whispered to Toothless.

"I don't know," replied Toothless, shaking his head. "I was _sure_ I sensed a Rebel down there. Well, kinda. If that dragon _was_ a Rebel, then he isn't completely loyal. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing."

Suddenly, from behind them, Snakebane cried out and plummeted to the ground, narrowly missing Drift and crashing through trees and breaking branches.

"SNAKEBANE!"

The other four dragons nose-dived for the hole in the foliage. Drift was flying the lowest, so he made it there first. Toothless was half a second behind him. The scene in front of him left him staring speechless.

Drift was flat on his back, laughing so hard that he was nearing asphyxiation. Snakebane was also on his back on the ground, looking angrily at something sitting on his chest.

"You again?" Snakebane gasped, still winded.

The thing sitting on his chest sat up dizzily. It shook it's head to stop it from spinning, and that was when Toothless recognized him. It was a small, light blue Terrible Terror.

"Brightclaw?" asked Toothless.

The next thing Toothless knew, the little dragon was clinging onto his muzzle, looking right into Toothless' mint-green eye with his large bright orange ones.

"I heard something happened to Hiccup and I tried to find you to ask if it was true but I accidentally ran into the Purple One," gasped Brightclaw, speaking at a million miles an hour.

"It's okay," said Toothless. "We're out here finding a cure."

"Is it poison?" gasped Brightclaw.

"Possibly," Toothless admitted. "I think you should go see him. Just... don't freak out, and don't upset him."

Brightclaw nodded vigorously. He detached himself from Toothless' face and flew off towards the village. Toothless walked over to Snakebane.

"Did he hit you in the stomach?" Toothless asked, professionally holding back his laughter. Snakebane just groaned.

"Right side under the wing. I think the twit broke my rib," he moaned.

"Can you still fly?"

Snakebane groaned and sat up. He spread his wings and winced a bit. "Yeah, I think I can make it."

"Good. Let's go!"

Toothless shot out of the opening, followed by Stormfly, then Snakebane, then Drift, and then Quiver.

"What did you mean when you said _again_?" Quiver asked once they were in the air and flying.

"Well... I've had to beat that little dragon up a few times," muttered Snakebane.

"Brightclaw did the same thing last winter. We were in a clearing and Brightclaw ran right into Snakebane. Knocked him right over," Drift yelled. Snakebane grunted and rolled his eyes. Quiver just laughed some more.

"How did you know who he was, Toothless?" Quiver asked.

"Hiccup met him at a party."

"What party?" asked Snakebane.

"The one where YOU brought that barrel of dragon-nip!"

"Oh yeah... good times eh?"

Toothless sighed. "Back to business! Alright, we should start by scanning the west side of the island. The village is at the southern end of the island, and we've already covered that, so we'll go from west to north to east. If that doesn't work, we split up. Quiver, you'll look for glowing blue underwater caves. Drift, you take the forest. Snakebane, you'll check the islands off the east coasts. Stormfly, you'll check the tunnels, and I'll get as high as I possibly can and check from a dragon's-eye view. Does everyone understand?"

"Got it," said the other dragons.

Drift made a howling sound of approval from below. Toothless grinned.

"LET'S GO!"

**xxx**

"Anything?" Camicazi asked Luna. Luna was sitting by the window, on the lookout for flares.

"Nope... I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing," Luna replied. She sighed worriedly.

After a moment of complete silence except for the summer crickets, Camicazi said: "You like Drift, don't you?"

Luna didn't look at Camicazi, but Camicazi saw her luminescent scales darken a bit with a blush. But then her blush faded. "I think you should just worry about your own boyfriend right now."

At that moment, Hiccup, who hadn't moved in an hour let alone woken up, had a coughing fit. He curled up on his side, while Camicazi rubbed his shoulder and whispered soothing words, calming him down. After a moment, the coughing stopped and Hiccup went completely limp again, fading back into his comatose state. Camicazi gently rolled him back over onto his back, stroking the hair out of his eyes and placing a damp cloth on his forehead to try and control his fever.

Camicazi sighed. "We're technically not boyfriend and girlfriend."

At this, Luna gave a small laugh. "You're fooling yourself, then. I see the way you look at each other, the way you take care of him and the way he protects you. I know he loves you. I can see it in his eyes."

Luna turned around a bit and looked right at Camicazi. "And you love him too."

Camicazi was about to argue, but she felt too drained. Luna was speaking the truth. They both loved each other, but neither of them had the guts to admit it.

"Well," said Camicazi, "I don't see _you_ confessing your love to Drift."

Luna turned around to face Camicazi, but before she could say anything, something happened.

Hiccup sat bolt upright, eyes wide open and glassy, coughing so hard that he was on the verge of convulsing. Camicazi grabbed the bucket that was sitting next to her chair and put it in Hiccup's hands. Hiccup leaned over the bucket and vomited up blood. Camicazi put a hand on his back to find that he was shivering.

Hiccup stopped vomiting, and Camicazi gently but quickly pulled the bucket from his hands and put it on the ground. Hiccup fell onto his side and immediately curled up in a ball, pulling the blanket up to his chin. He was gasping for breath, still shivering, and so pale he looked like he had seen a ghost.

After a second, he kicked the blanket down a bit and let out a painful, heart-wrenching sob. Both of his pale hands were clutching his chest, right above his heart.

"It's okay Hiccup, it's okay. What happened?" whispered Camicazi, rubbing Hiccup's back. She was just as worried as she was shocked to see him pull out of his comatose state so quickly.

Hiccup was only able to utter a single word, but Camicazi immediately understood. "N-n-nightmare..."

"It's okay Hiccup, it's all over. It was just a nightmare. It's not real," Camicazi whispered in a soothing voice.

Hiccup's breathing had slowed as he calmed down, and a tiny bit of color had started to return to his pale face. He slowly rolled over onto his back, but he kept his eyes shut and one hand on his chest, as if guarding his heart. Then slowly, slowly, he pried his eyes open and looked at Camicazi.

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

Hiccup gulped, then shook his head. Camicazi brushed the hair out of his eyes.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" she asked.

Hiccup shook his head again. He cleared his throat and said in a hoarse voice: "I don't wanna, but I need to."

"Are you feeling well enough to talk?" asked Camicazi.

Hiccup coughed again, but when he spoke, his voice sounded normal. "Yeah, I feel fine. Can you help me sit up?"

Camicazi nodded, then helped Hiccup sit up so that he was leaning against the head of his bed. And then Hiccup told her everything his nightmare had shown him...

"_C'mon Toothless, we gotta get home fast, or Dad's gonna be so angry he'll catch on fire," exclaimed Hiccup as he and Toothless flew low to the tree tops. Behind them, the sun was setting, turning the sky brilliant shades of orange and red. The summer was coming to an end, but this evening had been warm. Which was probably the reason they were late._

_In the distance, Hiccup spotted the village. "Yes! We're gonna make it!"_

_But that was when it happened._

_A blast of fire from a clearing below shot up at them. It hit Toothless' prosthetic tail fin, which spontaneously combusted. They fell out of the sky like rocks. However, as they were falling, Toothless went into a cataclysmic spin, and Hiccup flew from his back._

_Hiccup landed in a tree at the edge of the clearing. His prosthetic foot caught on a branch, and he hung there, about ten feet off the ground._

_Toothless landed right in the center of the clearing. No sooner did he hit the ground than he was right back up, scanning the clearing for their attacker._

_The dragon that had shot them stepped from the shadows. Toothless recognized it immediately. It was a Death Darter Dragon. This dragon had the frightening ability to launch long, think bone-spears from it's mouth. It's neck was longer than that of a Zippleback, and it's scales were the color of blood. This dragon wanted a fight._

_Toothless took up a fighting position, ready to jump aside if the Darter shot a spear at him. Without warning, the Darter lunged forward. Toothless found this move strange, because a Darter could only launch a spear from a distance. However, this didn't stop Toothless from lunging right back._

_As for Hiccup, he was still caught in the tree, struggling to get his foot free. He couldn't see what was happening; he could only hear the sound of Toothless and the Darter fighting._

_Suddenly, Hiccup's foot dislodged itself from the branch, and Hiccup went crashing to the ground. He landed awkwardly on his side, hitting one of the roots that were sticking out of the ground. He hit his head, dislocated his right shoulder, and cracked a few ribs._

_A few agonizing minutes later, he pushed himself to his feet._

_Meanwhile, Toothless and the Darter had each other in what could have been a draw. Toothless had a deep gash on his shoulder, and the Darter had multiple bleeding gashes on it's wings._

_But then, from the corner of his eye, Toothless saw Hiccup stagger out from behind a tree and collapse on his knees in the clearing. However, the Darter saw Hiccup too, and an evil, hungry look sprung into it's eyes._

_Both dragons made their move at the same time. Toothless clamped his powerful jaws down on the Darter's neck, and at the same time, the Darter kicked Toothless right in the stomach. The Darter collapsed, dying, as Toothless flew about 50 feet backwards._

_Toothless slowly sat up, incredibly dizzy from that unexpected flight. He swayed back and forth as he sat there. He also failed to notice that the Darter, with it's last dying breath, readied and aimed a bone-spear. It was aimed right at Toothless._

_However, Hiccup saw it._

"_NO!" screamed Hiccup as he stumbled to his feet. He ran towards Toothless as fast as his scrawny legs would carry him._

_Time slowed to a crawl._

_The Darter launched the foot-long bone-spear. It hit with a solid _thunk_._

_Hiccup gasped._

_Toothless yelped._

_And then slowly, Hiccup looked down at the bone-spear sticking out of his own chest._

_Slowly, he collapsed on the ground, a look of total shock on his face._

_The dizziness in Toothless' mind vaporized as he saw Hiccup, lying on the ground, his face growing paler as the crimson stain on his chest spread._

"_**HICCUP!**" screeched Toothless. Rage filled his body and mind, and he glared up at the dying dragon across the clearing. He felt a white-hot burning fury fill his throat, and without hesitation, he blasted a fireball at the dying dragon. The fireball had had the effect of Thor's lightning bolt. The Darter's entire head was effectively removed form it's body, and the rest of the carcass was scorched black from the heat. Toothless had just shot a lightning bolt._

_However, his immense fury was replaced by crushing sadness as he heard Hiccup's feeble cough. Toothless stared down at the broken and bleeding form of Hiccup, lying in front of him, dying._

"_T...t...toothless..." gasped Hiccup, his glassy, half-closed eyes searching for Toothless. The look of shock had faded from his face and was replaced with a look of immense pain._

_Toothless sniffled. "I'm right here Hiccup," he whispered, choking on his tears. He curled his majestic body around Hiccup's then broken one. One wing slid under Hiccup, and the other covered him like a blanket, but still carefully avoiding the spear in his chest. Hiccup seemed to take comfort in Toothless' presence._

_Toothless used this moment to assess Hiccup's wounds. Hiccup's left lung was filling with blood, and his right lung had been punctured by his broken rib just a moment ago. But the final nail in the coffin was the spear. It was lodged about 4 inches in, going right through Hiccup's heart._

_This made it final. Hiccup was going to die._

_Hiccup's breath was becoming more and more ragged, and every time he coughed, blood trickled out of his mouth. His life was quickly fading away, and there was nothing Toothless could do._

"_It's okay Hiccup," Toothless whispered. "You're gonna be okay. Just please..." He stopped before his voice could crack. "Just please... please just don't give up..."_

_Hiccup painfully turned his head to face Toothless. Using all of his remaining strength, he raised his left hand to Toothless' face. However, his strength failed him, and his arm began to fall. However, Toothless quickly bent forward and caught Hiccup's hand with his muzzle._

"_Toothless..." Hiccup gasped, his weak voice no more than a whisper._

_Toothless looked at Hiccup, trying not to see the growing pool of blood beneath him. "Yes Hiccup?"_

"_Toothless?"_

"_I'm right here Hiccup. I'll always be here."_

"_You were my best friend..." whispered Hiccup with his last dying breath. His face became peaceful as his eyes slid closed and his hand fell gently from Toothless' nose. The pool of blood stopped growing as Hiccup's heart gave out and stopped. With a sigh of release, Hiccup died. The last thing he saw was Toothless._

_Toothless didn't move. He didn't want to comprehend. Slowly, he bent down and nudged Hiccup's cold face._

"_Hiccup?" he whispered, the tears flowing freely._

"_Hiccup?" he gasped again. When Hiccup didn't move, Toothless began to panic._

"_No no no no no, Hiccup? HICCUP!" wailed Toothless. He squeezed his eyes shut and gently placed his head on Hiccup's still chest. Hiccup was gone. He would never come back._

_The dread and sadness that had settled in Toothless' heart made it's way to his throat. Toothless threw his head back and cried out the most heart-breaking soul-shattering roar that was heard by every last living soul on Berk. It was the sound of tragedy and sadness. It was the sound of pain._

_Toothless once again choked on his tears. He looked back down at Hiccup's peaceful face. And then he laid his head on the ground right next to Hiccup... and he died._

_But Toothless died for the strangest reason. He didn't die of his injuries..._

_He died of a broken heart..._

The room was completely still and quiet. Even the summer crickets and the wind had gone quiet. Hiccup sat there, still clutching at his heart, silent tears running down his pale face. Camicazi and Luna were blinking back tears.

After a few minutes, Camicazi finally spoke. "It's okay, it was just a nightmare."

"But why can I still feel the spear?" gasped Hiccup.

"What?"

Hiccup tugged at the collar of his shirt and pulled it down. He and Camicazi gasped. On Hiccup's chest, right above his heart, was a thin white scar.

"That wasn't there this morning," gasped Hiccup. There was no explanation. The scar wasn't faded and it still looked new.

"But... how did that get there?" whispered Camicazi.

Hiccup looked up at Camicazi, but they both stayed silent. Some things were better left unsaid.

_A/N: Remember what I said about nightmares? So, I have a question: why is Annabeth The Unicorn the only one who still regularly reviews this story? Do the rest of you not like it anymore? T-T_

_Please review this story, whether you like it, hate it, or don't care. Or else I might pull a Toothless and die of a broken heart._

_I'm sorry, but if no one reviews, then I'll discontinue the story. ='(_


	14. The Answer

_A/N: Thank you so much to all who reviewed! Thanks to you guys, Dead by Dawn will continue! Dani- get an account and post that story! Little hint: Google translate will be your best friend for this chapter! Y'know, unless you speak fluent Spanish. =D_

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 14**

**The Answer**

"Well, your fever's not even a fever anymore. It's dropped back down to normal temperature," said Camicazi, her hand on Hiccup's forehead. She grabbed his wrist and checked his pulse. "Your pulse is also back to normal."

Hiccup was sitting cross-legged on the foot of his bed, resting his chin in his hand. "I told you I felt fine," he said.

"Well, I wouldn't say you're in the clear quite yet, but at least you're awake and your fever's dropped," said Camicazi, shaking her head in disbelief.

"What in the world is that?" mumbled Luna from the window. Hiccup slipped out of his bed and staggered over to the window, with Camicazi close behind him.

"What is it?" Hiccup asked. Luna looked down at Hiccup.

"I thought you were supposed to be dying," she said.

Hiccup shrugged. "So did I."

"Well, not all green spurs are poisonous," said Camicazi. She turned to Hiccup. "I'm starting to think you weren't actually poisoned from the start. You probably just got one of those really fast-moving infections that only last a few hours."

Hiccup shrugged again. "Or heat exhaustion. Both are entirely possible." He turned back to Luna. "What do you see?"

Luna squinted out the window. "Uh... I can't quite see it yet, but it- GAH!" Luna ducked her head just as something small and blue zoomed past her, right where her head had been. The little blue blur smacked into the wall at 500 miles an hour. It's head made a dent in the wall, splitting the wood in some places, and it slid to the floor.

"Brightclaw?" gasped Hiccup, straightening up, not even realizing he had started to fall. For the first time ever, the little dragon didn't immediately move, seeing as it had knocked itself out for a minute.

A few seconds later, the little heap of Terrible Terror unfolded itself and shook it's dented little head. Then his dizzy, bright yellow eyes focused on Hiccup, and the ambush on the bedroom's wall seemed to leave the dragon's muddled mind.

Brightclaw sluggishly crawled over to Hiccup, who bent down and carefully picked him up. The poor little dragon was shaking like a leaf. There was a small cut on his muzzle from his attack on the wall, but there was a large cut on his back from something else.

"Brightclaw, what happened?" gasped Hiccup.

"S-s-s-sh-sh-sh-sh," was all the little dragon could say. It was truly terrified.

Luna looked out the window and gasped. "Oh s***!" she muttered.

"What? What is-" Camicazi gasped as she looked out the window.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Hiccup walked over to the window and saw what was wrong: there was a flare heading straight up into the air. The flare was made of two separate fireballs that swirled around each other in some fiery dance. One was blue fire... the other fireball was green. "What does that mean?"

"It means we need to get out of here," said Camicazi.

At that moment, Brightclaw, who had been curled on Hiccup's shoulder, finally found the voice to scream. "**SHADOW!**" he screamed as he shot off Hiccup's shoulders and flew up to the rafters.

"I'm afraid you're not going anywhere," said a silky, feminine voice from behind them. Hiccup, Camicazi, and Luna all straightened up, and slowly, slowly, turned around.

Behind them they saw nothing. But that was when the fire suddenly went out, engulfing the room in darkness. However, a moment later, from somewhere in the shadows, a fireball was shot. It landed right in the fire pit, which erupted in fire. But not normal fire. It was black fire.

The black fire did nothing to illuminate the room; in fact, it just cast more shadows.

"Looking for me?" came the voice again. A ghostly shadow drifted from the darkness. As it came closer, Hiccup and Camicazi backed up into Luna, who was already backed as far into the wall as possible. Camicazi pulled out her sword, and Hiccup would have done the same had his sword not been all the way across the room, with a deadly shadow between them.

The shadow stopped about 5 feet away from them. Then something happened that would haunt their nightmares for the rest of their lives: the shadow itself began to consolidate. It rose off the ground like some demonic oil, drawing in shadows around it, forming a strange hellish black mist.

Suddenly, a pair of bright, blood red eyes appeared in the fog. The rest of the dragon followed. Hiccup had only ever heard legends about this dragon.

"Shadow dragon," he whispered, all the color draining from his face, his voice weak from raw fear.

"Hello," whispered the dragon menacingly. She smiled evilly. "And goodbye." She lunged.

**xxx**

Earlier

"Well, the west side was a bust," said Snakebane.

"And that's why we're at the _north_ side now," said Quiver, speaking slowly as if talking to a child.

"Would you two _shut up_?" moaned Toothless.

"Drift, do you see anything?" Stormfly called down.

"No, I- WAIT!"

All the other dragons practically came to a dead stop in midair. Snakebane actually ran right into Toothless. Toothless ignored Snakebane and drifted down closer to Drift. "What do you see?"

"I saw a cave! And I thought I saw something go into it!"

"Ooh, let's check it out!" exclaimed Snakebane. Snakebane had fully recovered from Brightclaw breaking his rib. In fact, the broken rib had already healed, which just goes to show that dragons are fast healers.

"Yeah, can we check it out?" asked Quiver.

Toothless looked to Stormfly, who shrugged. "I don't see why not. It couldn't hurt, and maybe whoever's down there can tell us where we can find a Moondew flower," said Stormfly.

"Alright," sighed Toothless. "Let's go."

The group descended into a clearing. "Hey, I recognize this place," said Toothless. "Hiccup and I crash landed here after we got struck by lightning!"

"You told me about that!" exclaimed Stormfly. "But... didn't you say that some Vine Dragon that lived in a cave up here attacked you?"

Toothless paled a bit and went straight into military mode. "Alright team, gas and sparkers at the ready. We'll go up to the entrance of the cave, and if whatever's in there tries to kill one of us, all the others open fire! Everyone understand?"

Snakebane sat bolt upright, looking up in a way that made him look like he was crossing his eyes. "Yes sir, Gummy!"

After everyone took turns whacking Snakebane, they slowly crept forward towards the vine covered cave. When they were about 10 feet away from the entrance, something in the cave moved. Slowly, a dark figure stood up and slowly shuffled towards the opening and out of the cave.

Once the dragon came into the moonlight, however, the whole group let out a sigh of relief and swallowed the gas in their throats. This dragon was _old_; so old, in fact, that almost every single one of it's scales were gray. There were still a few dark green scales, showing the color the dragon once was. The dragon had a catfish-like face and catfish-like whiskers, and bright yellow eyes. This dragon was actually called a Catfish dragon. It yawned, showing off all of it's missing teeth. Any teeth that still remained were dull and yellow. Ick.

The dragon's old, bleary eyes focused on the group. "¿Quién eres y qué quieres?"

Toothless, Stormfly, Quiver, and Drift just flat out stared. After a minute, Toothless broke the silence. "WHAT did he just say?"

To everyone's surprise, Snakebane said: "What are you guys talking about? He's speaking plain Spanish, duh!" Snakebane turned back to the Catfish dragon. "Hola, gusto en conocerte. Snakebane mi nombre, y estos son mis amigos. ¿Qué te llamas?"

"Mi nombre es Tomás, y no me importa quiénes son tus amigos!" snapped the dragon. "¿Qué estás haciendo aquí, en esta hora de la noche?"

Snakebane turned to the others. "His name's Tomas."

The other four dragons watched the conversation like a tennis match, so shocked that Snakebane could understand this dragon that they didn't even notice their jaws hanging open! A moth even fluttered around in Drift's mouth for a while, and he didn't even notice.

Snakebane shuffled awkwardly. "Bueno, mis amigos y yo estamos aquí tratando de ayudar a un ser humano enfermo en nuestro pueblo. Si no encontramos una cura para él antes del amanecer, entonces él va a morir! Estamos en busca de algo que se llama una flor Moondew. ¿Has oído hablar de ellos?"

Tomas paused for a second. Then he seemed to remember something. "En realidad, sí, he oído hablar de flores Moondew antes! Incluso he visto entonces cuando florecen!"

"He says he knows where the Moondew flowers are," Snakebane said to the group. "Así que, ¿dónde están?"

"Yo los he visto antes en una cueva en el lado oriental de esta isla muy! La cueva está justo por encima del agua, y tiene forma de luna creciente. Si no me equivoco, es incluso llamada Media Luna Gruta!"

"Um..." Snakebane turned to the others. "Any of you know where Crescent Grotto is?"

Time froze. The world stopped spinning for Toothless. He felt the entire weight of the world being lifted from his shoulders. They knew where the cure was! They could save Hiccup! Toothless felt like smacking himself with his tail repeatedly for not realizing it earlier.

"I know where that is," whispered Toothless.

"Mi amigo parece saber exactamente donde está! Muchas gracias por tu ayuda!" exclaimed Snakebane.

"¡Espera! Tengo una pregunta!" exclaimed Tomas.

"Sí, ¿qué es?"

"Quiero saber cómo el negro a escala dragón de ojos verdes que tiene la cicatriz en su pecho."

"Toothless," said Snakebane, "he wants to know how you got that scar on your chest."

"What scar? I don't have- THOR'S GOATS WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?" Toothless had a scar on his chest, right above his heart. It was in the same place Hiccup's scar appeared in.

Snakebane turned back to Tomas. "No tiene ni idea."

Tomas just shrugged. "Es mejor estar fuera de salvar lo humano enfermo. Si se está muriendo tan rápido como usted dice, entonces me temo que puede tener tan sólo unas horas a la izquierda."

"Muchas gracias por todo!" exclaimed Snakebane. All the others took to the air, but Tomas had something to tell Snakebane.

"Espero que usted y sus amigos van a tener éxito en salvar la vida del niño. Buena suerte, púrpura Uno!"

"¡Gracias!" called Snakebane as he jumped into the air and started to catch up with the others. _He called me the Purple One! Why does everyone call me that?_

"Una púrpura!"

"¿Sí?"

"¡Ten cuidado! Y cuidado con la Bestia!"

Snakebane was puzzled. "What does he mean by-"

"SNAKEBANE GET THE HELL UP HERE!" shouted Toothless.

Snakebane shot up into the sky and caught up with the others. "Toothless!"

"What? What is it?" asked Toothless as he glanced down at the scar on his chest that hadn't been there earlier.

Snakebane, panting from the effort of trying to catch up, gasped: "Tomas told me something that I think you'll find important!"

"Don't keep me waiting," growled Toothless.

"He said: beware the Beast..."

_A/N: Like I said before: Google translate is your best friend. And does anyone else find it ironic that Snakebane, the dumbest one in the group, can speak Spanish? How random is that? _

_I tried to find out the name of the dragon that can turn people inside-out, but when I deciphered what it said above the picture in the Dragon Manual, here's what I got: ECHDREMLE DAGERWUS. Say it out loud, and you'll get it. If you don't get it, it'll be in the next a/n on the next chapter. R&R! That threat is still active! O= By the way, I fixed the typos in the previous chapter. =)_


	15. The Battle of Crescent Grotto

_A/N: There is only one quote I can think of to describe this chapter: "Yer off the edge of the map mate! Here there be monsters!" Guess who said it. Enjoy! Oh, and remember, this happened before Ombra attacked Hiccup, Camicazi, and Luna. There was a time lapse in the previous chapter. ;) And look up there, I finally figured out how to put the title of the chapter at the top! Prepare for gory scenes._

**Dead by Dawn**

**Chapter 15**

**The Battle of Crescent Grotto**

Toothless rocketed around the edge of the cliff face. He knew exactly where he was going, and the others had their work cut out for them trying to keep up.

Because they were flying so low to the water, Quiver folded up her wings and splashed down, swimming along as fast as the others were flying. She would occasionally break the surface and jump like a porpoise, causing Snakebane to say: "Show off."

Toothless screeched to a halt in midair. Drift, Stormfly, and Snakebane all ran right into him. Quiver burst out of the water, looking refreshed.

"Why'd we stop?" asked Snakebane, backing away from the others.

"We're here," whispered Toothless. The others followed his gaze and gasped.

There on the cliff face was a cave; the entrance shaped like a crescent moon. From inside the cave came a soft blue glow. Moonlight.

"This..." whispered Toothless. "This is Crescent Grotto..."

He flew forward and right into the opening, the others all hovering outside. As soon as he looked up and took in what the inside of the cave looked like, his jaw hit the ground.

Every single bulb had turned into a beautiful, crescent-shaped white flower that glowed softly like moonlight. Moondew Flowers...

Slowly, Toothless walked forward, to the very back wall of the cave. He bent down and looked at one of the large, beautiful flowers. They even _smelled_ like moonlight, whatever the heck that smells like.

Toothless slowly reached out and plucked a single flower, holding it between two talons. He looked at it for a minute before holding it close to his black scaly chest. This was what was going to save Hiccup. He had to keep it safe.

Turning around, he did a little three-legged hop back to the entrance and climbed out. He hovered in midair a few feet away from the cave.

"What was in there?" asked Stormfly, her Mood Scales pinkish orange from excitement and relief.

Toothless held up the flower for all to see.

"Wow," muttered Snakebane. "It's so pretty!"

"That was the manliest thing I've ever heard you say," said Quiver. Snakebane stuck his tongue out at her.

"Will it really work?" asked Drift.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," said Toothless. "Let's get back to the village."

As they all aimed to shoot up into the sky, a cold, harsh voice stopped them. "I can't let you do that."

Everyone whipped around... and nearly passed out. Hovering right behind them was a large group of assorted deadly dragons. In the front of the group hovered a Dagger Claw, whose scales were black instead of the normal crimson. Toothless knew exactly who this dragon was.

The Beast.

Narrowing his eyes, Toothless smiled. As they hovered in the air, they all slowly gained altitude. They'd need it.

The Beast saw Toothless smile and growled. "What are you smiling at, Pet?"

"Oh nothing Caza. Or do you not go by that name anymore? You go by the Beast now?" snarled Toothless.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa WAIT!" exclaimed Snakebane. "The _Beast_ is a _GIRL_?"

"Do you have a problem with that?" snapped Caza. Snakebane looked up and saw Caza, Stormfly, and Quiver all glaring daggers at him.

"Nope."

By now they were all above the height of Crescent Grotto's cliff, coming up on 100 feet.

Toothless slowly put one paw over the one holding the flower. The movement alerted Caza and she returned her glare to Toothless. "What do you have there?" she hissed.

Toothless retreated a bit more. "Nothing of importance to anyone but me..."

"Really?" hissed Caza, coming closer to Toothless. "Because it _seems_ like it would be pretty important to your sick little human, don't ya think?"

Toothless's eyes widened. _How did she know about that?_

Snakebane's eyes immediately found Pike, the young Black-Back Shredder in the crowd. "It was you!" he exclaimed.

"No, it wasn't me, I swear!" yelped Pike, shaking his head. "I didn't know anything about the human!"

"Shut up Pike!" exclaimed Caza, snarling at him. "You're the worst lookout in history." Pike shrunk back into the crowd.

Caza turned back to Toothless. "Someone else told me about your poor sick little human. Someone who has been following him all day."

Toothless's pupils narrowed to slits. "Who?"

"Oh, she's here somewhere," hissed Caza.

"When do we get to see some fighting?" Drift whispered to Stormfly.

"How about now," hissed a smooth, silky voice from the darkness. Everyone turned and saw a pair of bright red eyes, glowing in the darkness. The shadows thickened and formed a dragon.

Toothless went pale. "Shadow Dragon..."

"Oh, the big bad Night Fury did his homework," cooed Ombra. The Shadow Dragon wasn't even flapping her wings; she was just standing on a thick patch of shadows! If Toothless hadn't been completely terrified, then he would have found that totally awesome.

"Ombra, I think we've got this under control," said Caza. "Do you know what you're supposed to do?"

Ombra smiled and looked right at Toothless. She obviously knew _exactly_ what to do, but she still said, "Refresh me."

Caza glared at Toothless also and smiled. "Go kill the human."

"NO!" shouted Toothless. He launched a fireball at Ombra, but when the fireball hit her, it disappeared. Ombra didn't even flinch.

"Good luck killing a Shadow," she hissed. With that, she vaporized into shadows.

Toothless whirled around and flew straight towards Drift. "Drift!" he called. The Drifter Dragon shot up into the air parallel to Toothless. They both launched a fireball at the exact same time, creating a blue and green flare. The flare that was supposed to tell Hiccup to get the hell out of there.

The second he launched the flare, Toothless turned and charged right at Caza.

"ATTACK!" shouted Caza.

All the dragons charged each other (except Pike, who flew the other way into the forest), but when two Scrills charged at Toothless, Caza shouted at them. "Back off! The Night Fury is mine!"

Toothless and Caza met head on. Toothless was at a slight disadvantage because he could only fight with one claw. Caza headbutted Toothless right in the shoulder, and Toothless rolled backwards in the air. Toothless immediately regained balance and shot a fireball at her. Caza ducked in the air, and the fireball hit a Vine Whipper (that had been about to attack Drift) right in the chink in their armor on their back. The Vine Whipper let out a shriek before falling dead to the ocean below.

They were all outnumbered. Stormfly had already taken out a Timberjack, and was now taking on a Vine Whipper and a Dagger Claw, one of Caza's little sisters, at the same time.

Drift was busy handling a huge Boneknapper, bigger than Goliath. He would continuously swoop in close and yank out a bone or too. At one point, he dislodged the bone that would let the Boneknapper breathe fire. Right after that, he took out the bone under it's left wing and blew fire into it. The dragon's bones became black as it's insides burned. It died a few minutes later, but Drift didn't have a moment to catch his breath. A Black-Back Shredder and a Vine Whipper attacked him from behind, and he too had his hands full.

Snakebane and Quiver were fighting side by side, which was good, considering most of the dragons seemed to be targeting them. Snakebane had lit himself on fire, and Quiver's poison barbs looked even more dangerous. The fin on her back was rattling like a rattlesnake.

A Scrill came at them from both sides. Snakebane blinded the one attacking him by clawing it's eyes out with his flaming claws, and Quiver wrapped her tail around the neck of the other, injecting it with venom. Quiver's Scrill froze and made a choking sound before going limp and falling into the ocean.

Snakebane finished off his Scrill by breaking it's neck. He heard Quiver scream and turned around to see a Whispering Death, it's teeth latched onto Quiver's shoulder. Quiver clawed at it's spiked head, trying to keep it from sinking it's teeth in further. Snakebane flew to help her, but a Timberjack flew straight at him, keeping him occupied. He eventually managed to get some of his napalm-like fire in the Timberjack's eyes, and the dragon careened backwards into the nearby cliff side. It too crashed into the ocean below.

Snakebane whirled around just in time to see the Whispering Death make a choking noise and go limp. Quiver pulled it's teeth out of her shoulder and tossed it off. She saw Snakebane staring and smiled a bit. "Poisonous blood." Suddenly, she screamed. "Look out!"

Snakebane turned around just in time to see a serrated tail whack him in the face, leaving a long ragged cut. The Vine Whipper charged at Quiver, who was still healing her bleeding shoulder, but it suddenly stopped. It's eyes rolled back into it's head and it's neck lolled forward at a weird angle. As it fell to the ocean, Quiver saw Stormfly hovering behind where it was.

Suddenly, there was a loud shriek. All three dragons looked over to Drift, who was now hovering over the forest instead of the water. The emerald dragon had a long angry red burn on his back. There was a Changewing hovering behind him.

As they flew towards the Changewing, the last Timberjack came shooting right at Stormfly. She yelped and ducked as it flew over, avoiding decapitation. However, the Timberjack's razor sharp wing sliced off one of her horns, leaving only an inch-tall stump left.

Stormfly gasped. The horn would grow back, but it would take _months_. Now she was ticked. Her Mood Scales turned an even darker shade of black with fury and she charged the Timberjack, screaming obscenities. The Timberjack took off screaming, flying for his life.

Snakebane and Quiver charged at the Changewing, but suddenly, the Changewing flew off towards one of the rocky outcrops a hundred feet out over the sea. It looked scared.

Quiver and Snakebane flew over to Drift, who was trying to stay conscious. The acid burn on his back was bleeding, and it would take a while to heal.

"Drift, buddy, can you hear me?" gasped Snakebane, extinguishing his flaming scales.

Drift looked up at them, still slowly sinking through the air, and then looked past them. "LOOK OUT!" he screamed.

A young Dagger Claw flew straight at them, claws ablaze. But suddenly, it stopped, looking at something behind them.

An enormous shadow blocked out the moon, and the owner of the shadow roared so loud that all the fighting stopped; even Toothless and Caza stopped trying to kill each other. Everyone turned and faced the dragon that blocked out the moon. Toothless recognized it first, and he gasped.

"DeathTurner," he whispered. The dragon, twice the size of a Boneknapper, was infamously known for how it kills.

The DeathTurner swooped down towards the younger Dagger Claw, it's enormous front claws glinting dangerously. The Dagger Claw screamed, and that was when the DeathTurner attacked.

The dragon grabbed the Dagger Claw's open mouth, one claw hooking the top jaw, and one claw hooking the bottom. With a forceful _yank_, the DeathTurner ripped off the Dagger Claw's lower jaw. The poor Dagger Claw made a horrible gagging screaming noise, and Caza screamed.

The DeathTurner then grabbed the Dagger Claw's back, using a small claw on it's tail to hook onto the base of the Dagger Claw's spine. With a powerful thrust, a horrible squelching noise, and a shower of blood, the DeathTurner shoved the Dagger Claw's spine up and out of it's mouth, turning the Dagger Claw inside-out.

There was absolute silence as the DeathTurner devoured half of it's kill. After a minute, it looked satisfied and flew off out to sea, most likely to some deserted island where it had a nest full of hungry hatchlings, taking the rest of the Dagger Claw's body with it.

The second it was gone, all hell broke loose.

"**AAAHHHHHH**!" screeched Caza. She lunged herself at Toothless. Toothless, who was still trying to keep the Moondew Flower safe, did the best that he could to dodge her.

Meanwhile, Stormfly went back to chasing the Timberjack. The Changewing was still hiding in the outcrops. Drift, Quiver, and Snakebane watched the two battles. None of them noticed the one remaining dragon.

A movement from below caught Snakebane's eye, and he looked down just in time to see a Black-Back Shredder, twice the size of Pike, heading straight for Quiver.

"NO!" shouted Snakebane. He threw himself in front of Quiver and the Shredder latched it's set of double claws onto his chest.

Snakebane screamed as the Shredder twisted his claws around, tearing at the wound.

Suddenly, the Shredder stopped as a deep green barb embedded itself in it's throat. The Shredder yanked it's claws out of Snakebane's chest, and Snakebane crashed to the ground below. The Shredder fell the other way and hit the cliff, tumbling off and down into the ocean.

"SNAKEBANE!" shouted Quiver, diving down through the trees. Drift, on the other hand, slowly sank down to the ground at the edge of the forest. He was traumatized from watching a dragon get turned inside-out, and from watching his best friend get his chest ripped open. Quiver had shot the barb so fast that he hadn't been able to comprehend it. And now, as Drift passed out on the ground, he just prayed that the battle would end with no more deaths.

**xxx**

Quiver crashed through the trees and found Snakebane, laying on his back, his eyes wide open. There was blood coming out of his mouth, and not to mention his chest. Looking at the wound on his chest, Quiver was horrified to see that she could actually _see_ a few internal organs. Parts of his ribcage had been fractured and were no longer there. Looking into the wound, she almost gagged.

"I-I-I it..." stuttered Snakebane.

"Shh, it's okay," whispered Quiver.

"C-c-can't b-b-b-breathe..." gasped Snakebane. "L-l-lung... g-gone..."

Quiver again looked at the wound. She couldn't see anything past the blood, so she gently placed her paw on the side of Snakebane's neck and closed her eyes. Using her awesome dragon senses, she analyzed the wound and, to her horror, found Snakebane to be right! More than half of his right lung had been ripped to shreds. The right lung had collapsed and stopped working all together, while the left one was filling with blood. The tips of almost all of his ribs above his lungs were basically gone, having been fractured and torn out with the Shredder's claws.

Quiver's eyes shot open and she looked at Snakebane. The light in the dragon's eyes were slowly dying, flickering out like a flame. He was deathly pale and his rapid heart rate was dropping as he lost more and more blood. Quiver didn't want to accept it. Snakebane was going to die.

Suddenly, the bushes rustled and a small Black-Back Shredder stumbled out. It was Pike. He stopped when he saw the wound on Snakebane's chest.

"What... what happened?" gasped the young Shredder.

"What do you think happened you bloody COWARD?" snarled Quiver, her green eyes glowing dangerously. "One of your species did this to him! He's going to die!" When she said this, her voice cracked, and the all mighty Quiver broke down into tears.

"D-d-don't c-c-c-cry," gasped Snakebane. He coughed and more blood sprayed out of his mouth.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, trying to hold back the tears.

Snakebane smiled a bit, his eyes closing. "I-I... l-lo-" He never finished his sentence. His eyes closed and his heart stopped beating.

Quiver sobbed and squeezed her eyes shut, the tears flowing freely. She bent her head over Snakebane's still chest. "I love you too..."

Time seemed to stop. Quiver couldn't hear anything except the sound of her heart shattering into a billion pieces. Snakebane had sacrificed himself for her. All the fights they had now stung like salt water on an open wound. She had been so mean to him, all just because she had been trying to hide how she felt. Well, now she felt like a piece of ice, thrown into a roaring fire. She never even got a chance to tell him...

"What's going on?" came a voice. Quiver opened her eyes and glared at the young Shredder.

"What are you talking about?" she whispered, feeling too weak to keep up her composure.

"That," he whispered. He was looking at Snakebane. Quiver looked down and gasped.

The wound on Snakebane's chest was healing! "How is that possible?"

"You were crying on it," said Pike. "I thought only Night Fury tears could heal..."

"But I'm poisonous. I'm supposed to kill, not heal!"

"Your blood may be poisonous, but your tears aren't," said the young dragon, smiling.

Quiver looked back at Snakebane's face. He still hadn't moved, but some of the color was returning. She gently placed her paw on the side of his neck again and, to her amazement, she found his heart to be beating again and the shredded lung to be healing! Snakebane started to breathe again.

"Snakebane," whispered Quiver. He still didn't move. "Snakebane, speak to me!"

Slowly, ever so slowly, Snakebane opened his ice blue eyes. "Te amo," he whispered.

Quiver almost passed out. "I love you too."

**xxx**

Toothless dodged swipe after swipe of Caza's deadly claws. For some reason, Toothless thought of the saying, "Hell hath no fury like a p***ed off female dragon." Well, now Caza was Hell, and she was gonna make sure there'd be no Furies.

Suddenly, Toothless heard Quiver cry out. "SNAKEBANE!" Ducking another blow, he turned and saw Snakebane fall to the ground and Quiver come after him. At the same time he saw Drift pass out and Stormfly knock out a Timberjack. The Timberjack was lucky enough to land on dry ground.

"Toothless, look out!" shouted Stormfly as she raced towards him.

Toothless turned around and immediately got a backhand to the jaw. He spun through the air, and when he finally rebalanced himself, he saw Caza, about 100 feet away now, building up gas in her mouth. She launched a fireball right at Toothless's head.

Time slowed down. Toothless bent backwards with his best matrix move. The fireball missed his head by inches, the heat enough to leave a black streak on his scales, and the light bright enough to resemble daylight.

Toothless closed his eyes, but as soon as he heard the fireball smash into the cliff face behind him, they snapped open again. He looked at the flower... and almost passed out.

The flower quickly shriveled up, turning brown and collapsing on itself. The light of the fireball had killed it, and it turned to dust in his paw.

Toothless gasped. He looked back up and saw Caza flying at him as fast as she could. Snarling, Toothless flew straight at her too in a dragon's game of Chicken.

Just as the two were about to collide head-on, Caza veered around Toothless. Toothless screeched to a halt in midair and turned.

"Toothless!" shouted Stormfly.

"Get everyone back to the village!" he shouted back. She turned in the air and flew back towards the forest.

Toothless chased after Caza. _What the hell is she doing?_

Suddenly, he saw where she was heading. "Oh no..."

Caza built up the gas in her mouth and launched a massive fireball... right into Crescent Grotto.

The fireball exploded, instantly killing every single flower in the cave.

"**NOOOOOO!**" screamed Toothless. The cure was gone! And so was all hope for Hiccup's survival.

Suddenly, Toothless felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, and then the world turned black.

_A/N: Mwahaha! Evil laugh! Okay, tell me what you think! Oh, and sorry for not updating this in a while. Y'know, what with school and exams and all that BS. Plus, I was writing a massive chapter for another one of my stories. 78 pages! Wow._

_So, one more thing: do any of you readers draw, and if so, would any of y'all be willing to draw scenes from this story and Time's Running Out? PM or say so in the review if you're interested. Thanks a billion! _

_Okay, one more thing: out of all my dragon OC's, who is your favorite good guy and who is your favorite bad guy? Thanks y'all! I love ya!_


	16. How do you kill a Shadow?

_A/N: Here we go. What y'all have been eager to see. The epic fight between Hiccup and Ombra! Oh, and did anyone guess where the quote in the last a/n came from?_

**Dead by Dawn**

"Shadow dragon," whispered Hiccup, all the color draining from his face.

"Hello," hissed Ombra. "And goodbye."

She lunged at the group, but they instantly scattered. Snarling, Ombra whipped around and locked her eyes on Hiccup, who was diving for his sword. She charged at him.

"Hiccup look out!" shouted Camicazi.

Hiccup grabbed his sword and turned around. The next thing he knew, his sword was flying out of his hand. It landed right in the fire.

"Oh, come one," muttered Hiccup. He looked up again and saw a pair or black talons heading right for his face. At the last second, he ducked, and Ombra's talons got stuck in the wall.

Hiccup rolled out of the way and ran over to the fire pit. "Crap," he muttered, seeing that his sword was in up to the hilt and already red hot.

Ombra allowed herself to become Shadow form again, and her talons phased through the wall. She turned and saw Camicazi running at her, screaming. Ombra solidified herself and prepared to pounce, but suddenly she felt a large weight on her back.

Luna attempted to sink her fangs into Ombra's neck, but her neck had become a Shadow form again. Suddenly, Brightclaw appeared out of nowhere and sunk his tiny fangs into Ombra's tail.

Ombra howled and whipped her tail around, sending Brightclaw flying out the window, where he was knocked out on a tree and passed out in a shrub.

"Screw this," muttered Ombra. She phased into a complete Shadow, disappearing. Luna fell to the floor and Camicazi's sword sliced through thin air.

"What happened?" asked Camicazi.

"She's gone," said Luna, standing up.

"Here they are!" exclaimed Hiccup from under his bed. He scooted out, holding his Night Fury scale riding gloves. They were special gloves that adjusted to heat and cold. They let him touch really hot things, really cold things, and if he was underwater, which he had been in a couple cases, the gloves grew webs between the fingers, letting him swim. Hiccup put them on and looked around. "Where's the dragon?"

"She disappeared," said Luna.

"Did she really disappear, or does she just want us to let our guard down?" asked Hiccup. They were all silent for a moment before looking over at the fire. The black flames were still burning. Ombra was still here.

Slowly, they all backed towards the window, where the moonlight was still streaming in. All of the shadows looked darker. They all took the shape of a dragon, but it was still impossible to see where Ombra was.

Luna willed her Moonshade Scales to glow brighter, trying to ward off the Shadows. Nothing seemed to be working. The silent forms of darkness slowly crept closer and closer.

Suddenly, something in the corner of the room moved. Luna took a step towards it, but suddenly, a thick Shadow shot right out at her.

"AAAHHH!" screamed Luna. The Shadow flew _through_ Luna's chest. Luna sat bolt upright and then collapsed in the corner, unconscious.

"LUNA!" screamed Hiccup and Camicazi at the same time. They both made a move to go for her, but something exploded right between them. They were both thrown opposite ways across the room.

The second Camicazi hit the ground, she was back up, as was Hiccup. Ombra reformed herself in the middle of the room and sat there, calmly looking between Hiccup and Camicazi.

"Hm, which one do I kill first?" she muttered to herself. "Hm... Okay, I think I'll kill you first-" she pointed to Hiccup, "-you second-" she pointed to Camicazi, "-and I'll kill her last!" she exclaimed pointing to Luna, who was still unconscious. "Any questions?"

"Yeah," said Hiccup. "Who are you working for?"

"The Rebels," she said. "The ones who will win this war."

"The war is over," growled Hiccup.

"It's nowhere _near_ over. It never was! Until now..."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, let's see, I'm pretty sure the Night Fury and all of his friends are dead by now. How ironic. They went to get a cure for you when you didn't need one! You were never poisoned in the first place! But don't worry. I'll make sure you're still dead by dawn."

Hiccup started to say something, but suddenly, a wall of blackness crashed down on him, enclosing him in a shadowy cocoon.

"HICCUP!" shouted Camicazi as he disappeared under the wall of blackness.

Ombra, without moving, flicked her tail, and the shadowy cocoon shot across the room, right at Camicazi. She jumped out of the way in time to avoid having her legs taken out, and the solid shadow crashed into the wall behind her.

Camicazi ran to it and knelt down. She could see Hiccup's silhouette inside. He was still alive, but he was thrashing around as if in pain. She put her hand on the solid shadowy wall of the cocoon, but instantly pulled away. It was as cold as ice.

She desperately pulled out her sword and took a swing at it, but her sword harmlessly bounced off. That was when she heard the laughter.

Turning around, Camicazi saw Ombra just sitting there, laughing. The laughter was cold, and it sent shivers down her spine.

"You actually think a tiny little _sword_ is going to do you any good against pure Shadow?" gasped out Ombra. She continued laughing.

Rage bubbled up inside Camicazi. She took a firm hold on her sword, pulled her arm back, and threw it right at Ombra.

Instead of the sword flying through the dragon like it had done not minutes before, the sword actually smacked right into Ombra's neck, leaving a long deep gash. 

Ombra's laughter was cut short with a choke. She hunched over, black blood dripping from the wound.

The second Ombra stopped laughing, the cocoon Hiccup was trapped in disappeared, and Hiccup fell to the ground. He was deathly pale, shaking, and gasping for breath.

"Hiccup? Are you okay?" asked Camicazi, bending down in front of him.

"No... air... So... cold..." gasped Hiccup, clutching his chest with pale shaking hands. Camicazi quickly pulled him into a hug, both to warm him back up and because she had been scared that he might have died.

Another choke came from across the room. Hiccup and Camicazi looked up at Ombra.

A black, shadowy cloud was covering her throat where Camicazi's sword had cut her. After a minute, the cloud disappeared and the wound was gone. She glared at Camicazi, her eyes glowing an even more dangerous red.

"You shouldn't have done that, blondie."

The room turned pitch black. Hiccup and Camicazi sat for a moment, only hearing the sound of their breathing. Suddenly, Camicazi screamed. She was yanked from Hiccup's arms.

"Camicazi!" shouted Hiccup into he darkness.

He sat for a minute before the light returned to the room. Ombra was nowhere to be found, but Camicazi was sitting slumped against the wall, right next to Luna, a large cut on her forehead. Hiccup scrambled to his feet and stumbled over to her.

"Camicazi?" he whispered. She didn't move. He put two fingers to her neck and, after what felt like hours, breathed a sigh of relief. She was alive.

"Don't get too relieved," hissed a voice from behind him.

Hiccup whipped around, but he didn't see Ombra, or from which direction the voice was coming from.

"I could have killed you 100 times over by now," hissed the voice. Hiccup spun around in circles. It seemed to be coming from ever shadow in the room.

Hiccup swallowed his fear. "Then why didn't you?"

"I like to play with my food," hissed the voice. Suddenly, Ombra formed directly in front of Hiccup. Before he even had a chance to scream, Ombra whipped her tail around, connecting with Hiccup's stomach. Hiccup flew across the room and smashed into the wall. He curled up in a ball, clutching his stomach and coughing. After he was able to catch his breath, he wiped off his mouth and looked at his hand. It was covered in blood, most likely from broken ribs.

Slowly, Hiccup pushed himself into a sitting position, only to have a large foot come down on his chest, pinning him on his back to the floor.

"You stupid little human," she hissed. "I'm really getting tired of playing with you. And when I get bored... I'd suggest running."

Hiccup gasped for breath. Ombra put a little more weight on him, and his broken ribs flared up.

"Oh, wait," she hissed. "You can't run from a shadow." She bent down, right in Hiccup's face. "I'm everywhere."

As Ombra put more weight on Hiccup's chest, he coughed violently, sending up a spray of blood.

"You... can't... be... everywhere..." gasped Hiccup.

"And _you_ will never see the light of day again," hissed Ombra.

She started to push down on Hiccup's chest even harder. He gasped, but couldn't get any air. It was like being back inside that shadowy cocoon; there was absolutely no air. Hiccup's lips were starting to turn blue when something caught his eye.

It was Camicazi's sword. He grabbed it and swung at Ombra's paw.

_Thunk!_

Ombra screeched and fell backwards, showering Hiccup with black blood. However, her front right paw stayed on Hiccup's chest. It took Hiccup a minute to realize that the paw was no longer attacked to the dragon.

"Gah," stammered Hiccup. He grabbed the paw and tossed it into the fire. He sat up and looked at Ombra, who was curled around her stump of a leg, screeching out obscenities that would make a Viking blush.

Hiccup gripped Camicazi's sword and charged forward. He swung the sword at the prone dragon, but it just passed right through.

Ombra snapped her eyes open and locked her glare on Hiccup. He stumbled backwards as Ombra stood up. A thick black cloud was forming around where her right paw was, stopping the bleeding. She reared back and took a swipe at Hiccup. He blocked her claw with the sword.

Ombra snarled and charged full on at him. Hiccup jumped back and Ombra ended up with her horns stuck in the wall. She was too enraged to think clearly, so she didn't become her Shadow form.

Hiccup brought the sword down on the back of her neck. She roared with pain and fury. With most dragons, that would have killed them right then and there, but with this dragon, all it did was bleed.

Hiccup stumbled backwards towards the fire pit. "How do you kill a Shadow?" he muttered to himself.

Suddenly, Ombra broke free from the wall and charged right at Hiccup again. It was the most frightening thing Hiccup had ever seen; a p***ed off three-legged Shadow Dragon charging at him full speed. It was strange because whenever Ombra put her stump of a leg down, it looked like the rest was just invisible. She was able to put weight on it without it even touching the ground!

Ombra lunged at him. Hiccup managed to fend her off for a while with the sword, but Camicazi's sword was heavier than his, and he was getting tired.

Suddenly, Ombra took a vicious swipe at the sword that Hiccup hadn't anticipated, and the sword was yanked from his hand and thrown across the room. It lodged itself deep into the wall.

"Aw, burn it," muttered Hiccup.

Ombra reared back again and, before Hiccup even had time to move, she raked her claws sideways across his chest.

Hiccup flew through the air, landing at the base of the fire pit. He didn't dare look down at the damage Ombra's claws did to him for fear that he would go into shock. Instead, he looked up at Ombra, charging at him again.

Reaching into the fire behind him, Hiccup wrapped his fireproof, dragon scale-covered fingers around the hilt of his sword, now white hot.

Ombra lunged at him and, with a steely determination, Hiccup stabbed her in the chest with his white hot flaming sword.

Ombra fell backwards on her back, thrashing and screaming. Hiccup, pulled himself into a sitting position and watched for a second. He knew that this wasn't going to kill the dragon. She would heal herself and come back.

Across the room, he saw Luna and Camicazi wake up, but it was already a bit too late.

"How do you kill a Shadow?" Hiccup asked himself again. He turned around and looked into the black fire. His eyes widened. "With another Shadow."

Ombra's paw had disintegrated, leaving only the talons. Hiccup reached in and grabbed the longest talon, about a foot long.

Without hesitation, he sprinted straight for the flailing dragon, his face a mask of determination. With a final burst of speed, he leaped over Ombra's tail, avoided her claws, and stabbed the talon right through her black shadowy heart.

Ombra let out an ear-shattering cry before disintegrating into shadows. The black fire died and was replaced with the normal fire.

Hiccup stood there, shocked. The talon was still in his hand, his sword was smoldering on the floor, and Camicazi's sword was lodged in the wall.

"Hiccup," breathed Camicazi walking closer to Hiccup.

Hiccup, pale and breathing hard, smiled. "_That_ is how to kill a Shadow."

Camicazi stepped forward and hugged him, but that was when he cried out. Hiccup doubled over, his left hand clutching Camicazi's arm, and his right hand clutching his chest where Ombra had clawed him.

"Hiccup!" exclaimed Camicazi. She grabbed his arm and she and Luna helped him over to the bed. They laid him down, and blood immediately started seeping onto the sheets.

Camicazi pulled out a dagger and cut Hiccup's shirt off to get a good look at the damage. What she saw made her gasp. "Oh Gods."

Three of Hiccup's ribs on the left side of his chest had fractured at such an odd angle that they had broken the skin and were now sticking out of his chest.

Camicazi turned to Luna. "Go get Sig."

Luna, who looked ready to puke, nodded and sprinted away.

"It's okay, Hiccup, it's gonna be-" she stopped when Hiccup grabbed her hand. He was paler and sweating. His eyes were glassy and staring off into the distance.

"C-Camicazi... I c-can't f-feel my r-right arm."

Camicazi looked in horror at Hiccup's right arm. She gently picked it up, only to find that it was completely stiff. Gently turning it over, she saw that all of the veins on his wrist were now _green_!

"The p-poison's n-not g-gone," stammered Hiccup. He slowly closed his eyes and went limp, slipping into a coma.

Camicazi stared at him for a moment before remembering something from earlier. _Sometimes the symptoms fade away for a while, but relapse twice as hard. _Hiccup had just relapsed.

They didn't know it, but Hiccup collapsed at the exact same time Caza burnt down Crescent Grotto.

_A/N: Okay, tell me EVERY SINGLE THING you liked! Long reviews are like chocolate. They make me happy! So, like I said before, did anyone guess where the quote from the previous chapter came from? Oh, and sorry for the gory scenes. Haha, I had fun writing kick-ass Hiccup. And remember, if you review, Hiccup gets to keep the rest of his ribs! SO REVIEW!_


	17. Collateral Damage

_A/N: Here we go! Another good ol' fight scene! Enjoy!_

**Dead by Dawn**

Toothless slowly opened his eyes. Wherever he was, it was dark, and his head hurt like crazy. After a minute, Toothless's eyes adjusted to wherever he was, and he was shocked to find himself in a cave.

To his right was the cave entrance, and what surprised him was that it was shaped like a crescent moon.

_Am I in Crescent Grotto?_ He looked around and didn't see any burnt remains of the vines or Moondew flowers, and this cave was a lot larger than Crescent Grotto. You could fit a DeathTurner in here!

As his eyes adjusted a bit more and his vision cleared, he realized that he wasn't alone. He saw two dragons sitting by the entrance, one large and dangerous, the other one smaller and hunched over as if it was being punished. The larger one looked like a Changewing due to the shape of it's head. Looking to his left, Toothless saw another still form of a dragon. He immediately knew this one was a Timberjack by the shape of the horns.

"Well good morning sleepy head," whispered a rough feminine voice directly in front of Toothless. He whipped around and, to his absolute horror, found Caza to be sitting directly in front of him.

Everything came flooding back to him. The fight, his friends, Caza burning down Crescent Grotto, and something beaning him from behind, knocking him out.

"Answer me this," snarled Toothless. "Which egghead grew a spine and snuck up on me?"

Caza looked at the Changewing sitting by the entrance. He sat up a bit straighter.

"I hope you go to hell and have a pineapple shoved up your-"

"We have some unfinished business," interrupted Caza.

"Fine, but if you're gonna kill me at least let it be a one-on-one fight," growled Toothless, crouching down.

Now that his eyes had adjusted fully to the light, he could see that the little dragon hunched over in the corner was a young Scauldron. The Timberjack to his left must have been the one Stormfly knocked out, because it had a bump on it's head and looked kinda disoriented.

"I never said anything about killing you," admitted Caza with an evil smile on her face.

Toothless narrowed his eyes and didn't say anything. However, he growled and made threatening sparks in his mouth with his sparker teeth to show that he meant business.

Caza narrowed her eyes too. "We were never going to kill you. We want you to join us."

"No!" stated Toothless bluntly.

"What do you have to lose?" asked Caza, slowly pacing around. "You were treated like a pet."

"You're wrong!" hissed Toothless. "My human-"

"_Your_ human?" interrupted Caza. "The only reason your human kept you around is because he couldn't walk after our Queen crippled him!"

_The Green Death was male,_ thought Toothless. _That must be demeaning._

"And face it! What have humans ever done for you?"

"They let me fly," growled Toothless.

"But whose fault was it that you can't fly alone in the first place? Whose fault is it that our Queen is dead?" Caza whipped around to face Toothless. "It's your human's fault. _He _shot you down, _he_ crippled you, _he_ allowed the humans to make _pets_ out of _us_, the warriors of the skies!"

"No," whispered Toothless, shaking his head.

"Yes!" exclaimed Caza, getting right up in Toothless's face. "Don't deny it! The only reason you stayed with him is because he was your flight! He was your ticket to freedom! But now you can fly on your own. You don't need him around any more."

"That's a lie!" exclaimed Toothless.

"Do you need any more proof?" roared Caza. "So many are dead because of him! Even Ruthless! Don't you care about your twin brother at all?" A distant look passed across Caza's eyes. It was only for a second, but Toothless recognized it instantly.

"Whoa whoa whoa, wait! _You_ had a _crush_ on my _evil twin brother_?" exclaimed Toothless, his eyes wide open and his jaw on the ground. He gagged a bit and his eye started twitching from just how _wrong_ that was.

Caza snarled dangerously at Toothless. "You _will_ join the Rebels, and you _will_ forget about your stupid pathetic human!"

"Do I even have a choice?" snarled Toothless.

"No," said Caza. She sat back. "Because your human is already dead."

Toothless became pale. "No. That's a lie!"

"Is it? Ombra has probably killed him by now."

"Then why isn't she here?"

"Oh, you know how much Shadow Dragons like to take their time killing their food," smiled Caza.

"NO!" shouted Toothless. "I'LL NEVER JOIN YOU!"

Without warning, Toothless lunged. However, he didn't lunge at Caza. He lunged at the Timberjack to his left. The dragon didn't have any time to react due to it's concussion, and it's neck was broken long before it realized what was going on. Toothless leaped behind the dragon's body and picked it up, using it as a shield.

"GET HIM!" shouted Caza, backing up. The Changewing stood up and prepared to douse Toothless in acid, but a boiling spray of water to the right side of it's face stopped it. It roared in pain and the young Scauldron attacked it. The two tumbled out of the cave, acid and scalding water spraying everywhere.

Caza turned and screamed obscenities at the two dragons as they disappeared, and Toothless took that moment to turn around and see if there was another way out. What he saw almost made him pass out.

A single Moondew Flower grew from a crack in the rocks.

Toothless was brought back to earth by a blood-chilling battle cry from behind him. He whipped around and grabbed the body of the Timberjack and held it up. Caza's claws sunk into the dead Timberjack instead of the living Night Fury. Enraged, she pulled her claw back and yanked the corpse out of Toothless's grasp. She turned and flung the body out of the cave.

Caza whipped back around just in time to take Toothless's tail to the jaw. The metal on the prosthetic only added to the pain.

She stumbled back a few steps before regaining her footing. She took a vicious swipe at Toothless with her three foot long claws. Toothless, fueled by renewed hope that he could still get the cure back to Hiccup, took a quick step back and caught her paw in his mouth. With a quick twist and bite, he shattered the claws on her right paw... and he shattered her wrist.

Caza screamed and tried to yank her paw out of Toothless's mouth. She swung at Toothless with her left paw. However, Caza was right-paw dominant, so her swing was slow and sloppy. Toothless easily caught it with his paw and bent it backwards, breaking that wrist too.

As Caza's left arm fell limp, she yelped again and gathered the flammable gas in her mouth. She swallowed it again when Toothless's paw connected with her ribs, breaking at least half of them.

Still biting down on Caza's paw, Toothless swung at her with his paw and left a long deep gash in her neck.

"NEVER FIGHT A NIGHT FURY!" screeched Toothless. His words were slightly muffled because of Caza's paw, but she still understood him loud and clear. He bit down a little bit harder... and activated his poison gland for only the second time in his life, injecting Caza with his deadly poison that would kill her in minutes!

Caza somehow sensed the poison and she completely freaked out. She whacked Toothless in the side of the head with her wing, and Toothless let go of her paw. Caza pulled her paw away and started to use her wings to support her.

Toothless firmly put one paw on her left wing, stopping her from sitting up. She fell to the ground, unable to use her back legs due to the paralyzing poison, and Toothless jumped on her back.

"Any last words?" snarled Toothless.

Caza didn't say anything. Instead, she filled her mouth with flammable gas once again, turned her head, and set fire to the last Moondew flower, which was no longer protected by Toothless.

"**NO**!" shouted Toothless. He turned back to Caza. "GO TO HELL!" he screeched.

"Where do you think I came from?" hissed Caza.

Rage filled Toothless, and he brought his heel down on the back of her neck. There was a loud _crack_, and the Beast moved no more.

Toothless stumbled off of Caza's body and towards the exit. However, as he got there, a shape darted up in front of him. He yelped and tried to claw at it.

"Whoa, hey, calm down!" exclaimed the young dragon. Toothless recognized it as the young Scauldron.

"Who are you?" demanded Toothless, trying to control the hopelessness crashing down on him. The cure was really lost this time.

"My name's Doppler. And I'm not a Rebel," said the Scauldron.

"What happened to the Changewing?"

"Drowned."

"Thanks. I have to go." Toothless pushed past the young dragon. He stepped out of the cave and almost fell off of a massive cliff. It was only then that Toothless realized where he was.

He was standing on a huge outcrop, 200 feet tall and 100 feet off the coast of Berk. Earlier that day he and Hiccup had even flown by this outcrop! And there had been another Crescent cave here this whole time!

Toothless jumped into the air and flew about 100 feet above the outcrop. If he looked straight down on it, he could see that it was shaped like a crescent moon, and the Crescent cave was right in the middle.

That was when Toothless looked up. He remembered he was still on the eastern side of the island, and, looking out over the ocean, he saw the sky starting to turn pink with the coming dawn.

"Oh burn it!" shouted Toothless, which was the dragon equivalent to saying damn it. He turned around and shot towards the village.

**xxx**

"It's a really good thing he's in a coma right now," exclaimed Sig as she bandaged Hiccup's chest.

Camicazi couldn't agree more, after seeing Sig forcefully set the runaway ribs back in place. Blood was now starting to leak through the bandages, but at least Hiccup's ribs were back in his chest where they belonged.

"Is he gonna be okay?" asked Camicazi.

Sig wiped a bit of sweat off of her face. She checked Hiccup's pulse and felt his forehead. "High fever, rapid pulse... I'd say it's looking pretty bad. The poison just makes it worse. He probably doesn't have much longer."

"Oh my gods," muttered Luna from the window.

"What now?" asked Camicazi, looking up at her.

Luna didn't answer. Instead, she ran over to the door and pulled it open. Four dragons stumbled inside.

"Oh my gods, what happened?" exclaimed Luna.

"Long story," said Quiver as she dragged Snakebane, who was currently unconscious, through the door. Stormfly followed behind Quiver with Drift thrown across her back.

"Drift!" exclaimed Luna.

"What happened to them?" asked Camicazi from across the room.

Quiver, who was still limping from the bite on her shoulder, laid Snakebane down. "He got his lung shredded," she said, gesturing to Snakebane, "and he got attacked by a Changewing," she said, gesturing to Drift.

"What about you two?" asked Camicazi, gesturing to Stormfly and Quiver.

"Whispering Death," said Quiver, letting Camicazi see the wound on her shoulder.

"Timberjack," said Stormfly, looking up at her horn.

"I forgot your dragon could speak Norse," said Sig.

Camicazi looked at Sig. "Can you go take care of them? I'll make sure Hiccup keeps breathing."

"Keep putting pressure on the wound," said Sig. She then rushed over to the dragons. "Okay, who needs help first?"

They all looked down at Drift. Sig became paler as she finally realized that she was looking down on _her_ dragon. She bent down and gently stroked his face. "So that's where you were all night..." She immediately got to work on the acid burn on his back.

Meanwhile, Stormfly quickly came over to the bed and stood across from Camicazi. "What happened to the Shadow Dragon?"

Camicazi looked up at her dragon. "Hiccup kicked her tail. I'll tell you later."

"Is that how _that_ happened?" asked Stormfly, gesturing to the large bleeding wound on Hiccup's chest. Camicazi nodded.

"Three of his ribs were sticking out of his chest," she said.

"Egh..." muttered Stormfly.

Camicazi looked up at the Mood Dragon. "The cure?"

"Toothless found them. I don't know what happened. He told me to leave."

"Where is Toothless?"

Stormfly's bottom lip started quivering. "I-I don't know..." Her eyes became watery and a couple tears trickled down her face. "I'm so worried... Tonight has just been hell on Berk. Luna might lose Drift, Quiver still might lose Snakebane, I probably already lost Toothless, and you might lose Hiccup! Gods, the boys just can't stay out of trouble!"

Stormfly's Mood Scales turned foggy gray with sorrow and she broke down in a heap on the floor, sobbing.

Camicazi found tears coming to her eyes too. She bit her lip and focused on stopping the bleeding, but it still didn't look too good. Hiccup was still as pale as death. The blood stain on the bandage was growing larger, but even worse, it was almost dawn. The poison would soon close in for the kill. Literally.

Camicazi could track the progress of the poison by just looking at him. His entire right arm had turned a faint, pale shade of green, and she could see thin streaks of green poison trailing across his chest. The poison had most likely circulated throughout his entire body by now, but it was idle, waiting for a cue from the sun. Once the first beam of sunlight hit Hiccup, the poison would destroy his heart he would die.

She shook her head and looked over at Sig. She had already put something on Drift's back to help with the burn, and she had also finished with Snakebane and was now cleaning off Quiver's bite wound. Luna sat in front of Drift, her head down and her eyes closed.

Camicazi looked back down at the wound on Hiccup's chest and saw that the blood stain had stopped spreading as fast.

"Hey Sig, I think the bleeding almost stopped," said Camicazi.

Sig quickly finished with Quiver and came over to Hiccup and Camicazi. She carefully removed the bandages, and Stormfly gagged. You could still see his ribs, and the rusty blood smell was incredibly strong. Camicazi started feeling queasy, but Sig wasn't even phased. She whipped a new set of bandages out of _nowhere_ and bandaged Hiccup's chest again. This time they held.

Sig turned to Stormfly. "You didn't find a cure?"

Stormfly slowly shook her head, but before she could say anything, the door burst open and slammed closed again. Toothless sprinted into the room.

"TOOTHLESS!" shouted all the conscious humans and dragons.

Toothless hopped right over Snakebane and sprinted to the bed, nearly wiping out Camicazi. He took one good look at Hiccup and turned around and ran over to the window.

"BURN IT!" he shouted. He slammed the window closed. "Quiver, come block out the light from this window!" Quiver hobbled over and stood in front of the window, spreading her wings to minimize any light.

Toothless ran over to the other window. "Stormfly!" Stormfly ran over and did the same as Quiver.

"Toothless, what's going on?" demanded Camicazi.

Toothless turned to her, a look of total defeat in his eyes.

"It's almost dawn. We're out of time."

_A/N: OMG, how is Toothless gonna fix this? Oh wait. I'm the author. I already know. Anyways, I won't be updating for a while because on Saturday I'm going to Atlanta for a volleyball tournament (my sister's tournament; my team sucked and I'm just there for moral support)._

_Be honest, how many of you forgot about Toothless being poisonous? Anyways, there will be exactly two more chapters after this. Why is it that all my multi-chapter HTTYD fics are always 19 chapters long. Oh, and by the way, in this fic Hiccup is 15 (remember, his birthday was about a week after he was poisoned by the White Death in Time's Running Out). Just thought I'd bring that up. I'm done rambling. Tell me what you liked, what you hated, and how annoying I am IN A REVIEW! Please please pretty please make it nice and long so that I will make my chapters nice and long!_

_The sequel to this story will be called something along the lines of "Volcano Quest." I've already got it planned out. =P See ya some time after Wednesday! =D_


	18. Time to Panic Yet?

_A/N: I'm BAAAACK! Did ya miss me? (Random person says: "Shut the hell up and get on with the story!")... Okay then..._

**Dead by Dawn**

"Toothless, what happened after we left?" asked Stormfly from where she stood, pressed in front of the window.

"Caza burnt down Crescent Grotto!" shouted Toothless, running around in circles.

Camicazi didn't know what he was talking about, but judging by the way all the other dragons gasped, it wasn't good.

"What are you talking about?" asked Camicazi.

"Crescent Grotto was where the Moondew flowers were," whispered Toothless, turning around to face her.

Camicazi's face paled. "And the flowers were destroyed..."

"And the cure is gone and I don't know what-" Toothless suddenly cut off. His eyes widened and he closed his mouth as he had his third "ah-ha" moment of the night.

"Toothless?" asked Stormfly.

"The cure isn't gone..."

"But you said it got burnt!" exclaimed Stormfly.

Toothless ignored her and turned to Camicazi. "Earlier today... er... yesterday afternoon, did you see Hiccup carrying a burlap sack after we got back?"

"Uh..." Camicazi cast her mind back to the day before. She and Hiccup had kissed in the forge, then Snakebane interrupted, then Hiccup ran into the back room and came back with Toothless' tail fin and... "Yeah, I remember him having a burlap sack with him."

"Where is it!" demanded Toothless, glancing nervously at the windows where light was still barely managing to slip through.

"Uh... he took it upstairs with your present, and it wasn't with him when he-" Camicazi was cut off by Toothless sprinting towards the stairs. He darted up into the loft and returned a moment later with the burlap sack in question.

"Toothless, what are you doing?" asked Stormfly.

Toothless didn't answer. Instead, he dropped the bag on the floor in front of the bed. Nudging it open, he started to explain.

"Right before we got back yesterday, Hiccup and I stopped at Crescent Grotto. Right before we left, he- AH HA!" Toothless pulled a small wooden box out of the burlap sack. He gingerly pulled the dragon tooth out of the lock holding the lid down. Then, slowly, he used his nose to nudge the lid off.

Inside sat three white-tipped bulbs, not yet bloomed into Moondew flowers.

"Toothless," whispered Camicazi, looking into the box, "are those..."

"Moondew flowers before they bloom? Yes," said Toothless, a grin splitting across his face.

"But... how do we get them to bloom?"

Toothless' smile fell. "Uh..."

"Moonlight," said Sig, from across the room.

Everyone looked at her.

"I read about it somewhere," she quickly explained. "They bloom in the moonlight. The sun hasn't broken the horizon yet, so you've still got a minute."

Camicazi looked at her, then Toothless, then she bent down and gently picked up one of the bulbs with the darker leaves. No one saw it shiver. She quickly walked over to the window Stormfly was blocking, Toothless following her. Stormfly moved out of the way, and Camicazi opened the window a bit.

Looking at the sky, she knew Sig was right. They literally only had a minute of night left. Camicazi held the bulb out the window... and nothing happened.

"Why is nothing happening?" gasped Camicazi. She brought the bulb back in, looking closely at it.

Stormfly bent down and sniffed it. "It doesn't smell like the others," she said. "It smells like blood..."

Camicazi looked to Sig, who was checking Hiccup's vitals. "Why isn't it working?"

"Like Stormfly said, someone got their blood on it. Now if a different person touches the bulb before it blooms, it won't bloom," said Sig.

"Hiccup got the blood from his arm on that one," muttered Toothless.

Camicazi whirled around to face him. "What about the other two?"

"His blood is on the other one with the darker leaves too; only the light one's clean," said Toothless, moving to Hiccup's bedside.

Hiccup wasn't moving at all. He wasn't even breathing; the only sign of life was his fluttering heartbeat and his fever.

Camicazi quickly picked up the wooden box containing the last two bulbs. "What about after they bloomed?"

"After they bloom it's fair game," said Sig, laying a cool wet rag on Hiccup's feverish forehead.

Camicazi looked back down at the bulbs. She gently reached in again and this time picked up the lighter bulb, holding that one in her hand and leaving the darker one in the box.

Quickly running back over to the window, Camicazi opened it again, this time holding out the box with the lid still off.

Inside the box, the bulb quivered a bit. Then, the white tip of the bulb slowly expanded, turning the bulb inside-out as it bloomed into a white, crescent-shaped Moondew flower. It glowed slightly, looking like moonlight.

Camicazi's eyes widened. She started to bring the box with the flower in it back inside, but just before she could get it into the safe darkness of the house, the sun broke the horizon.

The Moondew flower instantly stopped glowing. It turned brown and slowly, to Camicazi's horror, shriveled up until it was nothing but dust.

Camicazi yanked the box back inside and slammed the window shut. Stormfly jumped in front of it.

"We really are out of time now..." she whispered, looking at the last Moondew bulb in her hand. There was no more darkness left. No more moonlight. It was already dawn. Time had run out.

"Toothless," said Camicazi, looking up at Toothless.

Toothless wasn't looking at her. He was looking at Hiccup.

Camicazi carefully set the bulb on the floor in the middle of the room and walked over to Hiccup's bedside. He was deathly pale, and still in a coma. His time was up.

Toothless closed his eyes and bent his head.

Camicazi put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she said. "There's nothing else we can do..."

"Yes there is," said a voice from behind. Toothless and Camicazi turned around, and Sig looked up. Luna was standing in the middle of the room, bending down as close as she could to the bulb.

She smiled a bit. "Watch this..."

Luna squeezed her eyes closed in concentration. It was only then that Toothless realized what she was doing.

Luna's Moondew scales started to glow brighter, and the bulb quivered. Squeezing her eyes shut tighter, she forced her scales to glow as bright as they could until they finally reached the equivalent of moonlight. The bulb bloomed into a Moondew flower. The last Moondew flower of the year.

Luna's scales stopped glowing all together and she stumbled backwards, collapsing unconscious; the effort of reaching the glow of the actual moon draining her of energy.

No one moved for a minute. Finally, encouraged by a rough cough from Hiccup, Sig stepped forward and picked up the flower. She quickly brought the delicate flower over to a table next to Hiccup's bed. She carefully peeled the green leaves off before slowly dropping the white bud into a small cup filled with water. The flower instantly disappeared and the water started glowing light blue.

Sig smiled and looked up at Camicazi and Toothless, who were both watching with wide eyes. Toothless looked ready to start hyperventilating, Camicazi looked amazed, and Hiccup still looked dead.

Sig walked back over to Hiccup's bedside. She gently put the cup to his lips and tilted his head back, pouring the cure down his throat. She emptied the cup and stepped back.

Nothing happened. Toothless slowly bent forward and nudged Hiccup's face with his nose.

Hiccup coughed and finally, _finally_, took a deep breath and started breathing again. The green traces of poison on his arm and chest slowly disappeared, and the color returned to his pale face. He slowly opened his glassy green eyes.

"I can't think of anything _witty_ to say right now," he whispered, lifting his hand to stroke Toothless, who was only about an inch away from his face.

At this point, Sig sighed with relief and stepped away from the bed, letting Camicazi take her place.

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, don't you _ever_ scare me like that again!" exclaimed Camicazi.

Hiccup smiled up at her. He reached up and put his arm around her neck, then pulled her down and kissed her. All the conscious dragons in the room blushed and covered their eyes with their wings.

Then, out of nowhere, Quiver collapsed on the ground, snoring. Everyone looked over at her.

"Don't worry," said Stormfly. "She's nocturnal. That's normal."

"Actually, I'm feeling pretty beat up," said Toothless, yawning. His yawn caused a massive yawning chain reaction. Everyone was _exhausted_. Sig walked over to where Drift was sleeping and tucked herself under his wing, falling asleep.

Stormfly left her spot at the window and shuffled over to Camicazi. Stormfly collapsed at Camicazi's feet and Camicazi sat down in front of her. She looked back over to Hiccup.

"Are you gonna be okay for a while?" she asked.

Hiccup, who was already on the floor using Toothless' paw as a pillow and his wing as a blanket, nodded. Toothless was already asleep, and a few seconds later, so was Hiccup.

Camicazi smiled a bit and curled up under Stormfly's golden wing. "One hell of a night," she muttered before falling asleep.

* * *

Stoick's ship arrived at the harbor only a few hours later. He was tired from the long boat ride home, and all he really wanted was to get a few hours of sleep.

He tiredly trudged up the hill to his house was, but when he reached the door, he noticed something... strange...

There were four dragons sleeping outside the front door, two on each side. On the left was the Black-Back Shredder, Pike. Sleeping on Pike's head was a small, light blue Terrible Terror. The Terror had a few cuts on his face and a few pieces of bark stuck to his horns and claws. On the right side of the door was a young Scauldron, Doppler, curled up in a ball, fast asleep. Laying curled up on Doppler's head was another Terror, but this one had black scales.

Stoick stared at them for a minute before carefully making his way to the door. The second he touched the door handle, however, they eyes of the Shredder and the Scauldron both popped wide open. The two dragons exchanged a few words in Dragonese before nodding at Stoick and going back to sleep. The two Terrors remained unconscious.

Stoick wasn't really a bright man, but he did know that something was off. He quickly opened the door and stepped inside...

… and almost tripped over Snakebane's tail. Stoick stood shocked as he looked around the room. There were dragons covering the entire floor area, there were scorch marks everywhere and chunks of wood missing from the walls. Camicazi's sword was still lodged deep into the wall, and Hiccup's sword had almost set fire to the floor.

_Speaking of Hiccup..._ Stoick looked around the room and finally spotted the Night Fury. Toothless, at that moment, slowly opened his eyes. When he focused on Stoick, his eyes widened.

"Uh, Hiccup," he whispered, unfurling his wings a bit so that Stoick could see Hiccup.

Hiccup shifted a little bit before opening his eyes and looking at Stoick's shocked face.

"Hey Dad," said Hiccup tiredly. "I can explain..."

* * *

_A/N: There will be one more chapter after this one: the epilogue! … I'm not very happy with this chapter. Should I rewrite it or leave it as it is?_

_By the way, the little Terrible Terror with the black scales is named Musket. You'll meet him in the next story. So... please review! Let's see if we can make it to 100!_


	19. Epilogue

_A/N: Ah, the epilogue. So sad. But don't worry, I promise to get the sequel/companion piece up right away! It's gonna be called Volcano Quest. It won't be as long as this story or Time's Running Out, but it will set up something important for the next story. _

_One more thing: I'm writing my own OC dragon manual with all my OC dragons in it. I've only got one chapter up so far, but I figured some of y'all might wanna know more about the OC dragons. Just click on my name, go to my list of stories, and you'll see it right there: Qille's OC Dragon Manual. Okay, I'm done rambling. ON WITH THE FLUFFY CHAPTER! This chapter is basically all Hiccazi fluff..._

* * *

**Dead by Dawn**

"Done," muttered Hiccup as he examined his new dagger. The handle was a sturdy metal covered in padding for a firm grip, and the blade was actually the talon of the Shadow Dragon.

Hiccup walked away from the fire and into the back room. He sat the Shadow Talon dagger on the table and took off his fireproof gloves.

He picked up the dagger and twirled it expertly, checking to see that it was perfectly balanced. He caught the handle and flung the dagger across the room, where it imbedded itself into the wall.

"Perfect," said Hiccup, walking over to the dagger. He grabbed the handle and started to pry the dagger loose from the wall... but he heard something that made him stop.

Just outside his work room, Hiccup thought he heard footsteps.

_Tap, thunk... tap, thunk..._

The footsteps were uneven and it sounded like the person was limping. Hiccup walked over to the curtain and drew it back, expecting to see Gobber. But no one else was in the Forge.

Hiccup took a careful step out into the main room of the forge, looking around for the source of those footsteps. When he didn't see anything, he started to turn around and go back to dislodging the dagger from the wall, but he stopped when something caught his eye.

He slowly walked towards the open window, where he had seen the gleam of something metal. There, lodged in the window sill, was what looked like a _tiny_ metal dragon tooth. Or a tooth of _some_ type of predator that had perfectly rounded metal teeth that came to a point.

Hiccup pried it out of the window and held it up, somehow managing not to prick himself. He studied the metal 'tooth' for a moment before leaning out the window to get a look at what left it. Just as he placed his hands on the window...

"Hiccup?"

Hiccup gasped and whipped around, dropping the fragment onto the floor where it fell through the floorboards. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw it was Camicazi who had snuck up on him.

As he faced Camicazi, he just missed something dark darting by the window and into the forest.

"Aww, did I scare you?" asked Camicazi in her fake pity voice.

"N-no," stammered Hiccup, trying to slow down his heart rate. "You just... caught me off guard..."

"Sure," she said, smiling. "I see your hand's better."

"What? Oh, yeah..." said Hiccup, flexing his now bandage-free right hand.

"What about your chest?" asked Camicazi, taking a step closer and leaning her head against Hiccup's shoulder.

"It's healing," muttered Hiccup, looking down at his shirt where a small spot of blood was starting to appear, having leaked through the bandages. "Remind me again, why didn't you let Toothless heal me?"

"How many times have you been exposed to Night Fury tears or Night Fury blood?" asked Camicazi, looking up at Hiccup.

"Uh... a couple times..." said Hiccup, shrugging.

"Well there ya go. If you're exposed to Night Fury blood or tears too many times, they your body is probably gonna get used to it, and it won't work," said Camicazi, slipping her hand into Hiccup's. "I'd guess that they'd only work one more time on you before you're immune to them..."

"Probably," muttered Hiccup. He turned to face Camicazi. "So how's your head?"

"Are you questioning me about the cut on my head or my sanity?" asked Camicazi.

Hiccup thought for a minute. "Yes."

Camicazi laughed and pushed her bangs back, revealing the long thin scar across her forehead where she had hit the wall after being thrown across the room by Ombra. "The cut is doing perfectly fine."

"And what about your sanity?"

"Meh..."

They both laughed and stayed that way for a while; holding hands and watching the flames flicker in the Forge's fire pit.

After a while, Camicazi said; "So... did you finish that dagger you were working on?"

"Yeah," said Hiccup. "I finished it just before you got here. Wanna see it?"

"Of course!" exclaimed Camicazi, standing up.

Hiccup led her into the back room where the dagger was still lodged into the wall. He walked over to it and, with a forceful shake, yanked it out of the wall. He brought it over to his desk, where Camicazi had taken a seat.

"Okay, what I did was I melted this part of the handle," said Hiccup pointing to where the talon and handle connected, "and the talon just stuck there."

"Aren't you worried about the talon shattering?" asked Camicazi, taking the blade in her hands and turning it over, inspecting it.

"Well, originally I was before I found out how hard these things are," said Hiccup, gesturing to the wall. "Plus, this thing spent like 5 minutes in the fire. I think that made it harder."

"And you killed a Shadow Dragon with it," said Camicazi. "That's gotta count for something."

"We'll see," said Hiccup. After a minute of thought, however, he said: "Watch this!" He ran into the front room of the Forge and came back a minute later with a giant, thick metal shield that probably weighed three times as much as him.

Hiccup painstakingly dragged the shield over to the wall and propped it up. After catching his breath, he walked back over to Camicazi and took the dagger. He turned around, faced the shield, and hurled the dagger at it as hard as he could.

The dagger connected with a solid _thunk_! They both walked over to see that the talon had penetrated all the way through the 3 inch thick metal shield.

"Isn't that awesome?" asked Hiccup excitedly.

"You're such a boy," said Camicazi, rolling her eyes.

Hiccup smiled and pulled the dagger out of the shield. He stored it away in a custom holder.

"So... it's a beautiful night," said Camicazi. "Wanna go for a walk?"

"Sure," said Hiccup, thankful that the light in the room was dim, because he was blushing so deeply that you couldn't see his freckles.

Camicazi grabbed Hiccup's hand and pulled him through the door, out into the warm starry night. They walked down towards the abandoned docks, hand in hand.

"Where is everybody?" asked Camicazi.

"Probably at Mead Hall, getting drunk," said Hiccup. "I think my dad told me something about there being an 'adult only' party tonight."

"That kinda scares me," muttered Camicazi. "Did someone remember to check everyone for weapons?"

"I have no idea," said Hiccup.

A few minutes later, they arrived at the docks. They walked out to the end of the docks and sat down, watching the reflection of the stars and full moon in the unnaturally still water. The peaceful sounds of crickets chirping and dragons chattering filled the night air.

Camicazi leaned into Hiccup, and Hiccup put his arm around her. After a minute, they turned to face each other and kissed. The kiss was interrupted a few minutes later when a large flock of Terrors flew overhead, all of them chorusing "Awww..."

Hiccup broke away from Camicazi and looked up at the flock. "Do you mind?"

The Terrors giggled and flew off.

Hiccup looked back down at Camicazi. "Sorry..."

"Don't be," she said. "The last time we kissed was two weeks ago. You're just a little bit out of practice."

Hiccup sighed. "I can't believe it's really been two weeks..."

"Well if it's been two weeks and she hasn't come back, then she's not _ever_ coming back," said Camicazi.

"Well, yeah, but... she was a Shadow! I shouldn't have been able to kill her that easily," said Hiccup.

"Easy?" exclaimed Camicazi. "Hiccup, you got half of your chest ripped out trying to kill her. You call that _easy_?"

"That's not what I meant!" exclaimed Hiccup. "I just meant that I don't really think she's gone."

"Hiccup, you need to calm down," said Camicazi. She stood up and grabbed Hiccup's hand. "C'mon!"

"Where are we going?" asked Hiccup, standing up and following Camicazi.

"You'll see."

Camicazi ran up the hill back to the village with Hiccup in tow. They eventually stopped right in front of Hiccup's house. Camicazi was about to slam the door open, but Hiccup stopped her.

"Camicazi, wait!"

"What?" she asked, turning to him.

"What if Toothless and Stormfly are in there? I don't wanna walk in on... whatever they do in their spare time!"

"Don't worry, I saw them heading off towards the Cove earlier," said Camicazi with a wink. Hiccup just blushed.

Camicazi slowly pushed the door open. The house was empty. She pulled Hiccup into the center of the room where they both stood next to the fire pit.

"See?" she asked. "The fire's red; not black. She's dead, and you're safe."

Hiccup sighed a bit, staring into the fire. The warm red glow of the dying embers comforted him.

"You're right..." murmured Hiccup.

"Yes, I am," said Camicazi, a hint of smugness in her voice.

Hiccup smiled and took her hand in his.

"Well, c'mon," said Camicazi, tightening her grip on Hiccup's hand and pulling him out the door. "The night's still young, and so are we. Let's make the best of it."

"Can't argue with that," said Hiccup, following her out into the moonlit night, closing the door behind him.

Everything was peaceful.

...Or so they thought...

Back in the Haddock house, deep in the dying fire of the fire pit, while all the embers burned red, there was still one single ember burning black.

Because you can never _truly_ kill a Shadow...

* * *

**To be Continued...**

_A/N: It's done! I wanna thank all y'all reviewers out there who threatened me with my life when I threatened to discontinue this. Thanks for letting me know y'all still cared, and thanks for all the positive helpful reviews! I hope y'all stay this positive with my next HTTYD stories._

_That's all I can think to say other than I LOVE ALL Y'ALL! HTTYD FOREVER! And congratulations to whoever the 100th reviewer will be! This is my first story to make it to 100!_

_Qille out (for now)! =D_


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